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Humans differ in paternal investment—the degree to which fathers help mothers care for their offspring. They differ in this way between individuals, between populations, and between stages of cultural evolution.

During the earliest stage, when all humans were hunter-gatherers, men invested more in their offspring with increasing distance from the equator. Longer, colder winters made it harder for women to gather food for themselves and their children. They had to rely on meat from their hunting spouses. Conversely, paternal investment was lower in the tropics, where women could gather food year-round and provide for themselves and their children with little male assistance.

This sexual division of labor influenced the transition to farming. In the tropics, women were the main providers for their families as gatherers of fruits, berries, roots, and other wild plant foods. They were the ones who developed farming, thereby biasing it toward domestication of wild plants.

This may be seen in sub-Saharan Africa, where farming arose near the Niger’s headwaters and gave rise to the Sudanic food complex—a wide range of native crops now found throughout the continent (sorghum, pearl millet, cow pea, etc.) and only one form of livestock, the guinea fowl (Murdock, 1959, pp. 44, 64-68). Many wild animal species could have been domesticated for meat production, but women were much less familiar with them. Men knew these species as hunters but had little motivation to domesticate them. Why should they? Women were the main providers.

And so women shouldered even more the burden of providing for themselves and their offspring. Men in turn found it easier to go back on the mate market and get second or third wives. Finally, men had to compete against each other much more for fewer unmated women.

There was thus a causal chain: female dominance of farming => female reproductive autonomy => male polygyny => male-male rivalry for access to women. Jack Goody (1973) in his review of the literature says: “The desire of men to attract wives is seen as correlated with the degree of women’s participation in the basic productive process.” The more women produce, the lower the cost of polygyny.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the cost was often negative. Goody quotes a 17th century traveler on the Gold Coast: the women till the ground “whilst the man only idly spends his time in impertinent tattling (the woman’s business in our country) and drinking of palm-wine, which the poor wives are frequently obliged to raise money to pay for, and by their hard labour maintain and satisfie these lazy wretches their greedy thirst after wines.”

Goody cites data from southern Africa showing that the polygyny rate fell when the cost of polygyny rose:

In Basutoland one in nine husbands had more than one wife in 1936; in 1912, it was one in 5.5 (Mair 1953: 10). Hunter calculates that in 1911 12 per cent of Pondo men were plurally married and the figure was slightly lower in 1921. In 1946, the Tswana rate was 11 per cent; according to a small sample collected by Livingstone in 1850 it was 43 per cent. The figures appear to have changed drastically over time and the reasons are interesting. ‘The large household is now not a source of wealth, but a burden which only the rich can bear’ (Mair 1953: 19). Not only is there a specific tax for each additional wife, but a man’s wives now no longer give the same help in agriculture that they did before. One reason for this is that the fields are ploughed rather than hoed. Among the Pondo, ‘the use of the plough means that the amount of grain cultivated no longer depends on women’s labour’ (Goody, 1973)

Although polygynous marriage has become less common in southern Africa, polygynous behavior seems as frequent as ever. To a large degree, polygynous marriage has given way to more transient forms of polygyny: prostitution and other informal arrangements. Goody also notes that polygyny rates have remained high in the Sahel, where pastoralism has nonetheless increased male participation in farming. He gives the example of Ghana. Polygyny rates are about the same in the north and the south, yet in the north men participate much more in farming.

So what is going on? Goody concludes that “female farming and polygyny are clearly associated in a general way” but ultimately the “reasons behind polygyny are sexual and reproductive rather than economic and productive.” It would be more parsimonious to say that the polygyny rate increases when the cost of providing for a woman and her children decreases for men. Over time, low-cost polygyny selects for men who are more motivated to exploit sexual opportunities. This new mindset influences the subsequent course of gene-culture coevolution.

Such gene-culture coevolution has gone through four stages in the evolutionary history of sub-Saharan Africans:

First stage

Tropical hunter-gatherers were already oriented toward low paternal investment. Men had a lesser role in child rearing because year-round food gathering provided women with a high degree of food autonomy. Women were thus selected for self-reliance and men for polygyny. Pair bonding was correspondingly weak in both sexes.

Second stage

This mindset guided tropical hunter-gatherers in their transition to farming. In short, female-dominated food gathering gave way to female-dominated horticulture—hoe farming of various crops with almost no livestock raising. Women became even more autonomous, and men even more polygynous. There was thus further selection for a mindset of female self-reliance, male polygyny, and weak pair bonding.

Third stage

A similar process occurred with the development of trade. Female-dominated horticulture tended to orient women, much more than men, toward the market economy. This has particularly been so in West Africa, where markets are overwhelmingly run by women. Trade has thus become another means by which African women provide for themselves and their children.

Fourth stage

Female-dominated horticulture has given way to male-dominated pastoralism in some regions, such as the Sahel. Despite higher male participation in farming, the pre-existing mindset has tended to maintain high polygyny rates. We see a similar tendency in southern Africa, where polygyny rates have fallen over the past century, and yet polygynous behavior persists in the form of prostitution and less formal sexual arrangements.

The Hadza and the Datoga

Mode of subsistence, mating system, and mindset are thus interrelated. These interrelationships are discussed by Butovskaya et al. (2015) in their study of two peoples in Tanzania: the largely monogamous Hadza (hunter-gatherers) and the highly polygynous Datoga (pastoralists). In their review of previous studies, the authors note:

In hunter-gatherer societies, such as the monogamous Hadza of Tanzania (Africa), men invest more in offspring than in small-scale pastoralist societies, such as the polygynous Datoga of Tanzania [12-14]. Polygyny and between-group aggression redirect men’s efforts from childcare toward investment in male-male relationships and the pursuit of additional mates[15]. When men participate in childcare, their testosterone (T) level decreases [15-18]. Muller et al.[19] found that, among the monogamous, high paternally investing Hadza, T levels were lower for fathers than for non-fathers. This effect was not observed among the polygynous, low paternally investing Datoga. (Butovskaya et al., 2015).

Butovskaya et al. (2015) confirmed these previous findings in their own study:

Datoga males reported greater aggression than Hadza men—a finding in line with previous reports [29,30]. It is important to mention several striking differences between these two cultures. There is a negative attitude toward aggression among the Hadza but not among the Datoga. In situations of potential aggression, the Hadza prefer to leave[30]. In contrast, aggression is an instrument of social control—both within the family and in outgroup relations in Datoga society. Datoga men are trained to compete with each other and to act aggressively in particular circumstances[30]

The authors also confirmed differences in reproductive behavior between the two groups:

Our research indicates a difference in the number of children in Hadza and Datoga men achieved after the age of 50. This may be interpreted as differences attributable to different life trajectories and marriage patterns. Beginning in early childhood, boys in the two societies are subjected to different social and environmental pressures (e.g., it is typical for Datoga parents to punish children for misbehavior, while parental violence is much less typical for Hadza parents). Hadza men start reproducing in the early 20s, but their reproductive success later in life is associated with their hunting skills[15]. In the Datoga, men marry later, typically in their 30s. Male status and, consequently, social and reproductive success in the Datoga are positively correlated with fighting abilities and risk-taking in raiding expeditions among younger men, and with wealth, dominance, and social skills among older men. In the Datoga, as in other patrilineal societies, fathers do not invest directly in child care, but children do benefit from their father’s investment in the form of wealth and social protection, as well as various services provided by father’s patrilineal male relatives[56]. In polygynous societies, spending resources on attracting additional wives may be more beneficial [40,57,58]. It would be difficult for some men to invest directly in providing for all their children, given that men with multiple wives can father a considerable number of children, and that households with wives may be located at substantial distance from one another.

This behavioral difference seems to be mediated by differing levels of androgens, such as testosterone:

The effect of androgens, such as T, operates through stimulation of androgen receptors [21-23]. The androgen receptor (AR) gene contains a polymorphic and functional locus in exon 1, comprising two triplets (CAG and GGN). This locus supports a regulatory function that responds to T, with fewer CAG repeat clusters being more effective in transmitting the T signal[22]. Moreover, the length of the GGN repeat predicts circulating and free T in men.

At the androgen receptor gene, the authors found fewer CAG repeats in the Datoga than in the Hadza. The number of repeats was also more variable in the Datoga. The Datoga’s higher and more variable polygyny rates thus seem to correlate with higher and more variable levels of testosterone.

The authors also wished to see whether these differing levels of testosterone correlate with differing levels of aggressiveness. To this end, they interviewed the Hadza and Datoga participants:

They were asked to provide information including their age, sex, marital status, number of children, ethnicity and aggression history (especially fights with other tribal members). All questions were read aloud in one-to-one dialogues and further explanations were provided, if necessary. Self-reported aggression was assessed with the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ;[48]). The BPAQ includes 29 statements, grouped into four subscales—physical aggression (9 items), verbal aggression (5 items), anger (7 items), and hostility (8 items)—answered on aLikert scale anchored by 1 (extremely uncharacteristic of me) and 5 (extremely characteristic of me).

Total aggression was found to correlate negatively with CAG repeat number. Age group did not predict aggression.

More polygyny = stronger sexual selection of men

Finally, the authors suggest that Datoga men, with their higher polygyny rate and fiercer competition for access to women, have undergone greater sexual selection. They have thus become bigger and more masculine than Hadza men. Although this selection pressure also exists among the Hadza, the driving force of sexual selection has been weaker because Hadza men are more monogamous and less sexually competitive:

Our findings are in concordance with other research, demonstrating that even among the relatively egalitarian Hadza there is selection pressure in favor of more masculine men [59-62]. At the same time, preference for more masculine partners, with greater height and body size, is culturally variable and influenced by the degree of polygyny, local ecology, and other economic and social factors [59-62]. Many Datoga women commented that they would like to avoid taller and larger men as marriage partners, as they may be dangerously violent [44,62]. Only 2% of Hadza women listed large body size as an attractive mate characteristic[63]. Hadza marriages in which the wife is taller than the husband are common, and as frequent as would be expected by chance[64]. (Butovskaya et al., 2015)

This is consistent with what we see in nonhuman polygynous species. Successful males tend to be the ones that are better not only at attracting the opposite sex but also at fighting off rivals. They thus become bigger, tougher, and meaner.

Not so. Logically the Arab male could be smaller because all Arabs are on average smaller than their European counterparts. (You could have replaced "Arabs" with "chimpanzees" and your point would be no worse).

The other answer compelled by logic is that Arab males haven't spent many generations competing with Eutopean males for mates.

Or that a large component of height variation in humans is lactose tolerance (the Romans noted northern europeans were taller than them), and that southeast asians are shorter than east asians, and how tall Koreans are, or just how much environment influences human height. Not to mention how much he hypes up the masculinity/physical prowess of blacks.

Then it becomes even more tenuous when you look at how much more violent europeans and east asians were in the past, that their homicide rates would atleast be comparable to african-americans, or just how many incredibly violent people throughout history there have been who haven't had polygamy. You know, like the mongols, the huns, many native american peoples, and probably any non-african people you can care to name in more distant times. Polygamy is less common in southern africans too, but look how bad violent crime, rape etc. is in South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. Nevermind their pre-modern behavior either, like the Zulu Empire.

I've found Peter's comparisons to polygamous vs. monogamous SS africans to be very worthwhile and a nuance few people know of, but stuff like this is short-sighted, to say the least. How exactly is polygamy such a principal factor in violence when there's no shortage of extraordinarily violent populations with minimal polygamy? You even extends this fixation on female agriculture to animal domestication in Africa, and how that possibly prevented widespread animal domestication. That would make sense if you didn't consider that africans have been in contact with zebras, elephants etc. long before widespread polygamy arose, nevermind that many of those animals aren't as common in west africa, which has been the longest inhabited.

Well, many Arab girls have to marry their first cousins, like it or not. There really is no actual sexual selection going on there. Your cousin may be tall or small, but you still have to marry him!

On the other hand my boss recently hired a Sikh girl to be my assistant. She is as stunning to look upon as any Bollywood star. She was telling me about her boyfriend's snoring the other day and I have to admit that I got weirded out at the idea of a Sikh girl sleeping with a guy and having sex before marriage. What is this world coming to??

Uh, your theory would only be true if Arabs were taller than Northern Europeans which is hilariously not the case.

Not so Myra. Arabs have a completely different route to polygyny. They--like a lot of peoples around the world--are pastoral. Food production basically depends on male protection of the flocks--aggression to protect territory. There is little to no female labor input outside the home. Women are not providing the food and can not provide for their own children with their own labor. In this sort of system, women are essentially like livestock\chattel--a man purchases or makes a deal for one for breeding purposes. There is often a bride price, rather than a dowry. And in pastoral economies, there tends to be a lot of endogamy, to build clans\tribes that can protect themselves. Women may be promised to relatives to build clan\tribe bonds.

There may be polygyny, but it comes simply from a man being rich enough to afford to support multiple wives and their children. Obviously in times of warfare when more men are killed off, polygyny rises.

Despite some similarities, these societies are very unlike African ones--patriarchal, rather than matrilineal, very little female independence and no female sexual freedom. Sexual relations are very well regulated rather than sloppy as in Africa. You don't find a lot of African style illegitimacy.

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Uh, your theory would only be true if Arabs were taller than Northern Europeans which is hilariously not the case.

Not so. Logically the Arab male could be smaller because all Arabs are on average smaller than their European counterparts. (You could have replaced “Arabs” with “chimpanzees” and your point would be no worse).

The other answer compelled by logic is that Arab males haven’t spent many generations competing with Eutopean males for mates.

The tutorials of Mr. Frost are in their own way the best of what’s around.

I suppose being bigger tougher and meaner would be an advantage for the feral children whose dads are deadbeats and whose moms are still preoccupied with the dating game. The achievement gap contains this paradox, that before whites can take care of themselves in basic ways blacks have already learned the ropes. Which suggests another black-white gap, the one concerning when youth start having sex, since that’s what parental investment is most invested in—keeping boys and girls in-line and innocent, respectively—and we know blacks mature more readily than whites that way. And of course when the choice is made at a younger age, the sex-selection preference is based on the basest traits. And so on, so that polygyny makes men bigger tougher and meaner first of all for the perfectly immature reasons of immature girls.

Feminism seems to have mainly the function of imitating subsaharan African social institutions by female (pseudo) work participance and welfare.

Exactly. And we still see this pushing forward with the war against "slut shaming", i.e. more encouragement for white women to have African style promiscuous sex lives.

However our system is worse in two big ways:

1) African women know "what's what", i.e. what to expect from their men--not much!
However, most white women (and others from civilizations--e.x. East Asian and Indians) actually have a fairly strong desire for bonding. They generally aren't very emotionally happy with promiscuity. And they have the expectation that after slutting around when they hit 30, and their sex appeal is slipping away, they'll be some prince charming who'll swoop in and volunteer to devote his life's work and earnings to her and her children in typical Euro-patriarchal fashion. In other words, feminism is teaching white women to behave like African's, when they still have the genetic endowment, natural propensities and romantic\child-rearing expectations of civilized European women.

2) African women actually produce--that's the African system, the women hoe and pick, the men drink and preen and fight to gain access to the women. Our women, outside traditional female "helping professions", produce very little of value in their paid labor. So our female "independence" is based on massive rip-offs of productive males--and their actual wives and families--through taxation (welfare, gov. employment, grantees, public services their income doesn't cover--ex. schooling for single mom's kids) and unnecessary costs in the economy.

In short, Africa while pathetic, has a naturally evolved system of high female agricultural labor input because of it's marginal land quality, and the polygynous that follows from it.

What we have is a fraud, where a small (and decreasing) share of productive men sticking to the civilized script produce this incredible prosperity for all, including large numbers of women--whom they mostly aren't sleeping with--while said women whine about it.

Not so. Logically the Arab male could be smaller because all Arabs are on average smaller than their European counterparts. (You could have replaced "Arabs" with "chimpanzees" and your point would be no worse).

The other answer compelled by logic is that Arab males haven't spent many generations competing with Eutopean males for mates.

Not so. Logically the Arab male could be smaller because all Arabs are on average smaller than their European counterparts. (You could have replaced "Arabs" with "chimpanzees" and your point would be no worse).

The other answer compelled by logic is that Arab males haven't spent many generations competing with Eutopean males for mates.

So then is it true that when women economically can no longer hoe standing up they must then “hoe” on their backs?
Seriously, Is America now swinging back to where women can be economically self-viable? And so the rise of feminist political correctness with its devaluation of men is following an ancient path?

In his survey of the literature (19th century), Westermarck concluded that 95% of Muslims were monogamous. This was true even among traditional nomadic groups like the Tuareg, the Toda, the Marea, and the Beni-Amer.

The picture is very different among the tropical farming peoples of sub-Saharan Africa. Traditionally, polygyny rates varied between 20% and 40% of all marriages, these rates being higher in West Africa and lower in eastern and southern Africa. In recent times, polygyny rates have declined, although polygynous behavior persists in the form of prostitution and less formal arrangements.

Peter Frost might be mentally retarded

This is why I quoted extensively from the study by Butovskaya et al. (2015). I didn’t want people to think I was just giving my stupid opinion.

I have just recalled my coming across in Israel a good illustration of the relationship between females being the food providers and polygyny. Amongst the fast multiplying Bedouin each wife provides by bearing children and bringing home the welfare cheque....

From a discussion I was having elsewhere a propos the opposite of the old patriarchal ways... Would not the national interest be better served if every woman who realistically aspired to be a major corporation's CEO (and to have one or two children in her 30s) were instead to have 15 children starting in her early 20s?

That of course is the short form. Discuss [as the exam question might say].

How are these polygyny rates measure? It would only take a few males to monopolize all the women, so I hope these percentages are the portion of women in plural vs monogamous marriages. Otherwise those figures could be misleading.

The really funny part is this essentially shows modern genes replacing older genes in a rapid fashion, all the while people are arguing about the European replacement now evident in the gene records regarding Bell Beaker, etc.

What this really shows is that social genetics is especially ruthless in weeding out less competitive populations, even from marginal spaces.

That is the true lesson of science and while everyone likes to “preserve” primitive cultures, they are just going to be destroyed in competition with the most advanced cultures, including those cultures that have undergone past selections for traits that lead to more success in the modern setting.

"less competitive" means of course less competitive in certain contexts. In the context of infinite western compassion, infinite development aid etc. in fact nobody is as competetive as western africans

Porn consumption is a form of polygynous behavior. It is common in men to have polygynous impulses, i.e. the desire for multiple women over time. It is said men cannot achieve multiple orgasms but that isn’t true in fact. Men usually do not achieve multiple orgasms with the same women in a short space of time, but put a second woman there and the results would be different.

In his survey of the literature (19th century), Westermarck concluded that 95% of Muslims were monogamous. This was true even among traditional nomadic groups like the Tuareg, the Toda, the Marea, and the Beni-Amer.

The picture is very different among the tropical farming peoples of sub-Saharan Africa. Traditionally, polygyny rates varied between 20% and 40% of all marriages, these rates being higher in West Africa and lower in eastern and southern Africa. In recent times, polygyny rates have declined, although polygynous behavior persists in the form of prostitution and less formal arrangements.

Peter Frost might be mentally retarded

This is why I quoted extensively from the study by Butovskaya et al. (2015). I didn't want people to think I was just giving my stupid opinion.

I have just recalled my coming across in Israel a good illustration of the relationship between females being the food providers and polygyny. Amongst the fast multiplying Bedouin each wife provides by bearing children and bringing home the welfare cheque….

From a discussion I was having elsewhere a propos the opposite of the old patriarchal ways… Would not the national interest be better served if every woman who realistically aspired to be a major corporation’s CEO (and to have one or two children in her 30s) were instead to have 15 children starting in her early 20s?

That of course is the short form. Discuss [as the exam question might say].

Further comments would include checking the pastoralists for milk compatability versus the hunter/gatherers.

We probably should start collecting dna from disappearing tribes to bank for posterity.

After all, they might have a mutation or two that could be adaptive in some other circumstance.

Like the seed bank in Svalbaard.

The other interesting thinking is the replacement of lower levels of the population by the elites through out competition over the long run. The Son Also Rises has shown the elites downward mobility still pushes the bottom into extinction. Is the average level of intelligence in China greater now than 2,000 years ago after ruthless selection by the scholar tests?

The comment about HG Wells is just the start, what happens when the rich can better select actual traits for their children.

The really funny part is nobody has commented on the really interesting part of the entire analysis: The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadza_people are essentially dying off rapidly (only 1,0000 left) as they are being destroyed by the neighboring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datooga_people, (est. at 90k and growing rapidly)who are themselves a branch of the Nilotic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nilotic_peoples people with significant genetic flow back into Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_E-M215_%28Y-DNA%29 .

The really funny part is this essentially shows modern genes replacing older genes in a rapid fashion, all the while people are arguing about the European replacement now evident in the gene records regarding Bell Beaker, etc.

What this really shows is that social genetics is especially ruthless in weeding out less competitive populations, even from marginal spaces.

That is the true lesson of science and while everyone likes to "preserve" primitive cultures, they are just going to be destroyed in competition with the most advanced cultures, including those cultures that have undergone past selections for traits that lead to more success in the modern setting.

“less competitive” means of course less competitive in certain contexts. In the context of infinite western compassion, infinite development aid etc. in fact nobody is as competetive as western africans

Uh, your theory would only be true if Arabs were taller than Northern Europeans which is hilariously not the case.

Or that a large component of height variation in humans is lactose tolerance (the Romans noted northern europeans were taller than them), and that southeast asians are shorter than east asians, and how tall Koreans are, or just how much environment influences human height. Not to mention how much he hypes up the masculinity/physical prowess of blacks.

Then it becomes even more tenuous when you look at how much more violent europeans and east asians were in the past, that their homicide rates would atleast be comparable to african-americans, or just how many incredibly violent people throughout history there have been who haven’t had polygamy. You know, like the mongols, the huns, many native american peoples, and probably any non-african people you can care to name in more distant times. Polygamy is less common in southern africans too, but look how bad violent crime, rape etc. is in South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. Nevermind their pre-modern behavior either, like the Zulu Empire.

I’ve found Peter’s comparisons to polygamous vs. monogamous SS africans to be very worthwhile and a nuance few people know of, but stuff like this is short-sighted, to say the least. How exactly is polygamy such a principal factor in violence when there’s no shortage of extraordinarily violent populations with minimal polygamy? You even extends this fixation on female agriculture to animal domestication in Africa, and how that possibly prevented widespread animal domestication. That would make sense if you didn’t consider that africans have been in contact with zebras, elephants etc. long before widespread polygamy arose, nevermind that many of those animals aren’t as common in west africa, which has been the longest inhabited.

Martin van Creveld: On Domestic Violence (spousal abuse of husbands is surprisingly common). I think European gender equality is going to be heavily emphasised culturally in future, but it will decrease genetically due to European men losing out to African competitors.

Much of sub-saharan west Africa ,both the sahel and savannah regions has a significant dry season lasting roughly half the year when little food can be grown and hunting traditionally increases( and in preparation for which grain is stored traditional granaries by local tribes). The savannah and sahel form a large belt which includes for example: Mali, Senegal, Burkina faso, the Northern and central halves of Ghana and Nigeria, Niger at the western end. The semi arid regions of east Africa including much Kenya, Sudan and Tanzania have their own significant dry seasons.
In many West African cultures though both sexes contribute economically, men have done much of the farming. In others men traditionally grew a staple crop and women a supplementary crop. In the Mandinka and Bamana tribes of Mali(and other nearby groups in the savannah/sahel) men grew millet and women rice. Among the Nigerian Igbo and other South east Nigerian tribes, Men grew the staple yam and women the supplementary cocoyam. Among the Nigerian Yoruba men traditionally grew most of the household’s produce while women sell it at the local market. Re. Africa, Goody also posited a general but imperfect link between polygamy and female farming. Often polygamy was desired for producing many sons for their help in farming (As was the case in certain South Asian cultures.)
In “Causes of Polygyny: Ecology, Economy, Kinship, and Warfare”Anthropologists Douglas R. White and Michael L. Burton support this idea and note: “Goody (1973) argues against the female contributions hypothesis. He notes Dorjahn’s (1959) comparison of East and West Africa, showing higher female agricultural contributions in East Africa and higher polygyny rates in West Africa, especially in the West African savannah, where one finds especially high male agricultural contributions. Goody says, “The reasons behind polygyny are sexual and reproductive rather than economic and productive” (1973:189), arguing that men marry polygynously to maximize their fertility and to obtain large households containing many young dependent males.”
1 White, Douglas and Burton, Michael. Causes of Polygyny: Ecology, Economy, Kinship, and Warfare. American Anthropologist, Volume 90, Issue 4, pages 871–887, December 1988, p. 884. print.
2 Jump up ^ White, Douglas and Burton, Michael. Causes of Polygyny: Ecology, Economy, Kinship, and Warfare. American Anthropologist, Volume 90, Issue 4, pages 871–887, December 1988, p.873. print.
^ Jump up to: a b Zeitzen, Miriam K. (2008). Polygamy: A Cross-Cultural Analysis. Oxford: Berg. p. 9.

Uh, your theory would only be true if Arabs were taller than Northern Europeans which is hilariously not the case.

Well, many Arab girls have to marry their first cousins, like it or not. There really is no actual sexual selection going on there. Your cousin may be tall or small, but you still have to marry him!

On the other hand my boss recently hired a Sikh girl to be my assistant. She is as stunning to look upon as any Bollywood star. She was telling me about her boyfriend’s snoring the other day and I have to admit that I got weirded out at the idea of a Sikh girl sleeping with a guy and having sex before marriage. What is this world coming to??

To anyone who has been married the answer is obvious, of course it makes you tougher. Keeping one Woman happy is chore enough for most of us, imagine two or more, it must be one endless fight. Fighting improves with practice, those guys are practicing all the time.

I am resisting the temptation to note that indeed the price of maintaining wives is much higher in Manhattan than in Utah….

But more seriously, do other comparatively primitive peoples fit the same pattern? I am a leading non-authority on the matter. Still, blacks always seem to me apart from all other races and I’d like to see the results for Amerinidans, Southeast Asians etc. if the necessary information is available.

Much of sub-saharan west Africa ,both the sahel and savannah regions has a significant dry season lasting roughly half the year when little food can be grown and hunting traditionally increases( and in preparation for which grain is stored traditional granaries by local tribes). The savannah and sahel form a large belt which includes for example: Mali, Senegal, Burkina faso, the Northern and central halves of Ghana and Nigeria, Niger at the western end. The semi arid regions of east Africa including much Kenya, Sudan and Tanzania have their own significant dry seasons.
In many West African cultures though both sexes contribute economically, men have done much of the farming. In others men traditionally grew a staple crop and women a supplementary crop. In the Mandinka and Bamana tribes of Mali(and other nearby groups in the savannah/sahel) men grew millet and women rice. Among the Nigerian Igbo and other South east Nigerian tribes, Men grew the staple yam and women the supplementary cocoyam. Among the Nigerian Yoruba men traditionally grew most of the household’s produce while women sell it at the local market. Re. Africa, Goody also posited a general but imperfect link between polygamy and female farming. Often polygamy was desired for producing many sons for their help in farming (As was the case in certain South Asian cultures.)
In “Causes of Polygyny: Ecology, Economy, Kinship, and Warfare”Anthropologists Douglas R. White and Michael L. Burton support this idea and note: "Goody (1973) argues against the female contributions hypothesis. He notes Dorjahn's (1959) comparison of East and West Africa, showing higher female agricultural contributions in East Africa and higher polygyny rates in West Africa, especially in the West African savannah, where one finds especially high male agricultural contributions. Goody says, "The reasons behind polygyny are sexual and reproductive rather than economic and productive" (1973:189), arguing that men marry polygynously to maximize their fertility and to obtain large households containing many young dependent males."
1 White, Douglas and Burton, Michael. Causes of Polygyny: Ecology, Economy, Kinship, and Warfare. American Anthropologist, Volume 90, Issue 4, pages 871–887, December 1988, p. 884. print.
2 Jump up ^ White, Douglas and Burton, Michael. Causes of Polygyny: Ecology, Economy, Kinship, and Warfare. American Anthropologist, Volume 90, Issue 4, pages 871–887, December 1988, p.873. print.
^ Jump up to: a b Zeitzen, Miriam K. (2008). Polygamy: A Cross-Cultural Analysis. Oxford: Berg. p. 9.

What’s the deal with all the facts and such in your comment? Are you trying to start a trend or maybe just you want to make other commenters look bad?

Porn consumption is a form of polygynous behavior. It is common in men to have polygynous impulses, i.e. the desire for multiple women over time. It is said men cannot achieve multiple orgasms but that isn't true in fact. Men usually do not achieve multiple orgasms with the same women in a short space of time, but put a second woman there and the results would be different.

In his survey of the literature (19th century), Westermarck concluded that 95% of Muslims were monogamous. This was true even among traditional nomadic groups like the Tuareg, the Toda, the Marea, and the Beni-Amer.

The picture is very different among the tropical farming peoples of sub-Saharan Africa. Traditionally, polygyny rates varied between 20% and 40% of all marriages, these rates being higher in West Africa and lower in eastern and southern Africa. In recent times, polygyny rates have declined, although polygynous behavior persists in the form of prostitution and less formal arrangements.

Peter Frost might be mentally retarded

This is why I quoted extensively from the study by Butovskaya et al. (2015). I didn't want people to think I was just giving my stupid opinion.

How are these polygyny rates measure? It would only take a few males to monopolize all the women, so I hope these percentages are the portion of women in plural vs monogamous marriages. Otherwise those figures could be misleading.

while everyone likes to “preserve” primitive cultures, they are just going to be destroyed in competition with the most advanced cultures

History is written by winners, and winners get to define words like “primitive” and “advanced.”

Porn consumption is a form of polygynous behavior

Yes, porn makes it possible for any man to have a “virtual harem.” As a result, men are being initiated into polygyny even though their brains are wired for monogamy or limited polygyny (two or three wives over a lifetime). The result is a kind of psychological overload whose effects are still largely unknown.

We probably should start collecting dna from disappearing tribes to bank for posterity.

Would Angela Merkel be willing to contribute?

Not to mention how much he hypes up the masculinity/physical prowess of blacks.

I’m saying there are certain well established physical differences between sub-Saharan Africans and other humans. It’s not physical prowess in general.

Then it becomes even more tenuous when you look at how much more violent europeans and east asians were in the past, that their homicide rates would atleast be comparable to african-americans, or just how many incredibly violent people throughout history there have been who haven’t had polygamy.

Datoga men were significantly more aggressive than Hadza men on all measures of aggression: physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility. This kind of general aggressiveness is different from violence inflicted in war. I don’t doubt that soldiers feel hatred for the enemy, but psychologically it’s different from the aggression between two men competing for the same woman. “Hatred” may not even be the right word for the latter situation.

Polygamy is less common in southern africans too, but look how bad violent crime, rape etc. is in South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland.

It has become less common only in recent times, over the past century and a half.

In many West African cultures though both sexes contribute economically, men have done much of the farming.

It’s largely a north-south difference in West Africa, as Jack Goody makes clear: “there is a striking contrast n Ghana, as in other countries of West Africa, between the role of women in the savannah regions and that of women near the coast. In the latter, as Bosman noted, food production is largely carried out by women, as in much of the rest of Africa.”

The savannah was colonized by farmers at a later date than the forested regions. This is especially true in the case of pastoralism, which developed with the introduction of cattle from the Middle East. African farmers moved into this ecological niche with a pre-existing mindset that favored polygyny, even though polygyny was now more costly for men.

Among the Nigerian Igbo and other South east Nigerian tribes, Men grew the staple yam and women the supplementary cocoyam

Yes, the Igbo seem to have a more equal division of labor between men and women. Men also participate much more in trade than is the case elsewhere in West Africa.

Among the Nigerian Yoruba men traditionally grew most of the household’s produce

Reference? I have trouble agreeing with the above.

But more seriously, do other comparatively primitive peoples fit the same pattern?

It’s the pattern of “tropical horticulturalists.” These are farming peoples who live in the tropics and whose ancestry has always been in the tropics. We don’t see this pattern in the Austronesian peoples of southeast Asia, even though they live in the tropical zone. They entered the tropics about three to four thousand years ago with a very different mindset.

How are these polygyny rates measure?

Goody defines the polygyny rate as the percentage of married men with more than one wife. Other people define it as the percentage of all marriages that are polygynous. In practice, the two definitions produce similar results in Africa because very few men remain celibate. A single man without children is considered to be a freak.

“The savannah was colonized by farmers at a later date than the forested regions.”
I believe the reverse may be true at least concerning certain crop traditions. The “Sudanic” crops all originate in the savannah (the Western sudan). The native yam and oil palm of course originate further south and may belong to a separate local domestication. Linguists have proposed that Niger-congo languages originate somewhere north of the forest.

“Among the Nigerian Yoruba men traditionally grew most of the household’s produce
Reference? I have trouble agreeing with the above.”

References:

“Men in precontact Yoruba society were engaged in farming, land clearing, iron smelting, house construction, and palm tree climbing…Women were involved in food processing, harvesting and marketing farm products”p.23 Women in the Yoruba Religious Sphere

…”Farming is men's work, although a few women worked their farms like men. In Ondo women help their husbands more than in Ife, where men do the clearing, hoeing, planting, weeding and harvesting.”
The Yoruba city in history: 11th century to the present p. 318
https://www.google.com/#q=yoruba+farming+men&tbm=bks

“In Yorubaland, agriculture was a male dominated profession. Unlike societies in the central and southeastern part of Nigeria where women cultivated and maintained large farms, Yoruba women were not directly involved in agriculture…”
Understanding Yoruba life and culture - Page 314

“When cultivating fields, planting crops, and bringing in the harvest, each man relied on his dependent male family members for assistance.”
Orature and Yoruba Riddles p. 45
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=yoruba+agriculture+male&ei=sU4uVuvkComy-QHxkYrIDw&emsg=NCSR&noj=1

while everyone likes to “preserve” primitive cultures, they are just going to be destroyed in competition with the most advanced cultures

History is written by winners, and winners get to define words like "primitive" and "advanced."

Porn consumption is a form of polygynous behavior

Yes, porn makes it possible for any man to have a "virtual harem." As a result, men are being initiated into polygyny even though their brains are wired for monogamy or limited polygyny (two or three wives over a lifetime). The result is a kind of psychological overload whose effects are still largely unknown.

We probably should start collecting dna from disappearing tribes to bank for posterity.

Would Angela Merkel be willing to contribute?

Not to mention how much he hypes up the masculinity/physical prowess of blacks.

I'm saying there are certain well established physical differences between sub-Saharan Africans and other humans. It's not physical prowess in general.

Then it becomes even more tenuous when you look at how much more violent europeans and east asians were in the past, that their homicide rates would atleast be comparable to african-americans, or just how many incredibly violent people throughout history there have been who haven’t had polygamy.

Datoga men were significantly more aggressive than Hadza men on all measures of aggression: physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility. This kind of general aggressiveness is different from violence inflicted in war. I don't doubt that soldiers feel hatred for the enemy, but psychologically it's different from the aggression between two men competing for the same woman. "Hatred" may not even be the right word for the latter situation.

Polygamy is less common in southern africans too, but look how bad violent crime, rape etc. is in South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland.

It has become less common only in recent times, over the past century and a half.

In many West African cultures though both sexes contribute economically, men have done much of the farming.

It's largely a north-south difference in West Africa, as Jack Goody makes clear: "there is a striking contrast n Ghana, as in other countries of West Africa, between the role of women in the savannah regions and that of women near the coast. In the latter, as Bosman noted, food production is largely carried out by women, as in much of the rest of Africa."

The savannah was colonized by farmers at a later date than the forested regions. This is especially true in the case of pastoralism, which developed with the introduction of cattle from the Middle East. African farmers moved into this ecological niche with a pre-existing mindset that favored polygyny, even though polygyny was now more costly for men.

Among the Nigerian Igbo and other South east Nigerian tribes, Men grew the staple yam and women the supplementary cocoyam

Yes, the Igbo seem to have a more equal division of labor between men and women. Men also participate much more in trade than is the case elsewhere in West Africa.

Among the Nigerian Yoruba men traditionally grew most of the household’s produce

Reference? I have trouble agreeing with the above.

But more seriously, do other comparatively primitive peoples fit the same pattern?

It's the pattern of "tropical horticulturalists." These are farming peoples who live in the tropics and whose ancestry has always been in the tropics. We don't see this pattern in the Austronesian peoples of southeast Asia, even though they live in the tropical zone. They entered the tropics about three to four thousand years ago with a very different mindset.

How are these polygyny rates measure?

Goody defines the polygyny rate as the percentage of married men with more than one wife. Other people define it as the percentage of all marriages that are polygynous. In practice, the two definitions produce similar results in Africa because very few men remain celibate. A single man without children is considered to be a freak.

“The savannah was colonized by farmers at a later date than the forested regions.”
I believe the reverse may be true at least concerning certain crop traditions. The “Sudanic” crops all originate in the savannah (the Western sudan). The native yam and oil palm of course originate further south and may belong to a separate local domestication. Linguists have proposed that Niger-congo languages originate somewhere north of the forest.

“Among the Nigerian Yoruba men traditionally grew most of the household’s produce
Reference? I have trouble agreeing with the above.”

References:

“Men in precontact Yoruba society were engaged in farming, land clearing, iron smelting, house construction, and palm tree climbing…Women were involved in food processing, harvesting and marketing farm products”p.23 Women in the Yoruba Religious Sphere

…”Farming is men’s work, although a few women worked their farms like men. In Ondo women help their husbands more than in Ife, where men do the clearing, hoeing, planting, weeding and harvesting.”
The Yoruba city in history: 11th century to the present p. 318

“In Yorubaland, agriculture was a male dominated profession. Unlike societies in the central and southeastern part of Nigeria where women cultivated and maintained large farms, Yoruba women were not directly involved in agriculture…”
Understanding Yoruba life and culture – Page 314

“When cultivating fields, planting crops, and bringing in the harvest, each man relied on his dependent male family members for assistance.”
Orature and Yoruba Riddles p. 45

“I’m saying there are certain well established physical differences between sub-Saharan Africans and other humans. It’s not physical prowess in general.”

You believe africans are more physically developed on the whole than whites. This is what you said, which has been repeated in previous writings of yours:

“This is also consistent with what we see generally in the highly polygynous farming peoples of sub-Saharan Africa. They and their African-American descendants exceed European-descended subjects in weight, chest size, arm girth, leg girth, muscle fiber properties, and bone density ”

“Datoga men were significantly more aggressive than Hadza men on all measures of aggression: physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility. This kind of general aggressiveness is different from violence inflicted in war. I don’t doubt that soldiers feel hatred for the enemy, but psychologically it’s different from the aggression between two men competing for the same woman. “Hatred” may not even be the right word for the latter situation.”

I’m definitely not talking about just war. You yourself have written extensively about how much more violent general society was in Europe and East Asia in the past. And even in the case of war, it’s not just about the enemy, it’s about things like how enemy civilian populations, prisoners of war etc. have been treated. You don’t have to look far at all in the past to see any civilization you can care to name committing incredible atrocities. I feel like this something you have never properly reconciled, but you continually write about male aggression as something more unique to polygamy.

“It has become less common only in recent times, over the past century and a half.”

You have written before about how the lower rates of polygamy in southern africa can be tied to their lighter skin color. Has polygamy been historically lower in southern africa or not?

West Africa was where the Bantu expansion came from and there is more polygyny in west Africa than to the south or east. The most extreme black African populations are found in coastal West Africa. Senegal, which has the highest rate of polygyny of all, is often cited as epitomising the sub Saharan physical type

http://www.ifad.org/gender/learning/sector/agriculture/68.htm
Except in Senegal, the hoe is invariably of the traditional ‘chop-down-and-pull’ type, and with a short handle. [...] The women in the study focus groups noted that of all their tasks on the land, weeding with a hand-hoe was the hardest and most time consuming job, causing both fatigue and backache. A major reason for this are traditional hoes’ short handles, which necessitates women’s bending over almost double to use them. Only in Senegal, where inter-row cultivation with animal traction is usually practised and long-handled push-pull hoes are in use, was weeding seen as less difficult. [...] Attempts to introduce long-handled hoes, such as those by a German-financed project in Zimbabwe, have apparently been unsuccessful (at the time of the research).What are the factors that have made the hand hoe so resistant to design change and innovation? There is a widespread belief (except in Senegal) that weeding is performed properly only when the worker is bent double and armed with a short-handled hoe. People who use hoes with long handles (the Langi tribe in Uganda and the Fulani in Burkina Faso, who are mainly nomadic herders; prisoners; or workers on commercial farms) are considered to be lazy and incompetent. Men are usually the ones who buy the tools, including hoes, even though their wives are more likely to be the tools’ users. The study found that even if they acknowledge that the women need lighter or differently designed hoes, the men still choose the traditional ‘male’ model of hoe when making the actual purchase.[...] The study found that women farmers repeatedly complained about the hoe and said that they wanted a lighter one for weeding. But handle length is another issue: Women seem to feel that a longer handle is inappropriate for them, even though it would be more comfortable for them to use. [...] The study found no cases where new tools requiring a change in their user’s traditional working posture were introduced successfully.

"I’m saying there are certain well established physical differences between sub-Saharan Africans and other humans. It’s not physical prowess in general."

You believe africans are more physically developed on the whole than whites. This is what you said, which has been repeated in previous writings of yours:

"This is also consistent with what we see generally in the highly polygynous farming peoples of sub-Saharan Africa. They and their African-American descendants exceed European-descended subjects in weight, chest size, arm girth, leg girth, muscle fiber properties, and bone density "

"Datoga men were significantly more aggressive than Hadza men on all measures of aggression: physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility. This kind of general aggressiveness is different from violence inflicted in war. I don’t doubt that soldiers feel hatred for the enemy, but psychologically it’s different from the aggression between two men competing for the same woman. “Hatred” may not even be the right word for the latter situation."

I'm definitely not talking about just war. You yourself have written extensively about how much more violent general society was in Europe and East Asia in the past. And even in the case of war, it's not just about the enemy, it's about things like how enemy civilian populations, prisoners of war etc. have been treated. You don't have to look far at all in the past to see any civilization you can care to name committing incredible atrocities. I feel like this something you have never properly reconciled, but you continually write about male aggression as something more unique to polygamy.

"It has become less common only in recent times, over the past century and a half."

You have written before about how the lower rates of polygamy in southern africa can be tied to their lighter skin color. Has polygamy been historically lower in southern africa or not?

West Africa was where the Bantu expansion came from and there is more polygyny in west Africa than to the south or east. The most extreme black African populations are found in coastal West Africa. Senegal, which has the highest rate of polygyny of all, is often cited as epitomising the sub Saharan physical type

http://www.ifad.org/gender/learning/sector/agriculture/68.htm
Except in Senegal, the hoe is invariably of the traditional ‘chop-down-and-pull’ type, and with a short handle. [...] The women in the study focus groups noted that of all their tasks on the land, weeding with a hand-hoe was the hardest and most time consuming job, causing both fatigue and backache. A major reason for this are traditional hoes’ short handles, which necessitates women’s bending over almost double to use them. Only in Senegal, where inter-row cultivation with animal traction is usually practised and long-handled push-pull hoes are in use, was weeding seen as less difficult. [...] Attempts to introduce long-handled hoes, such as those by a German-financed project in Zimbabwe, have apparently been unsuccessful (at the time of the research).What are the factors that have made the hand hoe so resistant to design change and innovation? There is a widespread belief (except in Senegal) that weeding is performed properly only when the worker is bent double and armed with a short-handled hoe. People who use hoes with long handles (the Langi tribe in Uganda and the Fulani in Burkina Faso, who are mainly nomadic herders; prisoners; or workers on commercial farms) are considered to be lazy and incompetent. Men are usually the ones who buy the tools, including hoes, even though their wives are more likely to be the tools’ users. The study found that even if they acknowledge that the women need lighter or differently designed hoes, the men still choose the traditional ‘male’ model of hoe when making the actual purchase.
[...] The study found that women farmers repeatedly complained about the hoe and said that they wanted a lighter one for weeding. But handle length is another issue: Women seem to feel that a longer handle is inappropriate for them, even though it would be more comfortable for them to use. [...] The study found no cases where new tools requiring a change in their user’s traditional working posture were introduced successfully.

" The most extreme black African populations are found in coastal West Africa."

Among the darkest pigmented populations are also the southern Sudanese and certain other Nilotic groups, who rely more on herding than most west African cultures, as well as the Andaman islanders who are hunter gatherers.

The “Yoruba exception” doesn’t seem so exceptional. The farming in this case is not traditional subsistence agriculture. It’s modern cash farming which often relies on migrant labor. Even so, women still do most of the work

There are no doubt other reasons why polygamy prevails in the Yoruba country as in other regions of the world; but the two which seem to be most prominent in the minds of Yoruba farmers are that wives contribute much more to the family income than the value of their keep and that the dignity and standing of the family is enhanced by an increase of progeny. While these beliefs persist the institution of polygamy will be enduring, even in families which have otherwise accepted Christian doctrine. The Yoruba farmer argues that the increased output from his farms obtainable without cash expense when he has wives to help him outweighs the economic burden of providing more food, more clothing and larger houses. (Boserup, 2007, p. 29)

Economic relations between husband and wife among the Yoruba differ widely from the common practise of countries where wives are normally supported by their husbands. Only 5 per cent of the Yoruba woman in the sample reproduced in Table 5 received from their husbands everything they needed — food, clothing and some cash — and only 2 per cent of them did no work other than domestic activities. A large majority were self-employed (in agriculture, trade or crafts) and many helped a husband on his farm in addition to their self-employment and their domestic duties. Most of these self-employed women had to provide at least part of the food for the family as well as clothing and cash out of their own earnings; nevertheless they performed domestic duties for the husband and half of them also helped him on his farm. (Boserup, 2007, pp. 29-30)

The joint result of women’s high rate of participation in agricultural work and their generally long working hours was that women, in nearly all the cases recorded, were found to do more than half of the agricultural work; in some cases they were found to do around 70 per cent and in one case nearly 80 per cent of the total. Thus the available quantitative information about work input by sex seems to indicate that even today village production in Africa south of the Sahara continues to be predominantly female farming. (Boserup, 2007, p. 10)

You believe africans are more physically developed on the whole than whites.

I believe they are physically more robust, with denser bones and a stronger musculature. That isn’t a personal opinion. It’s just the way things are.

even in the case of war, it’s not just about the enemy, it’s about things like how enemy civilian populations, prisoners of war etc. have been treated. You don’t have to look far at all in the past to see any civilization you can care to name committing incredible atrocities. I feel like this something you have never properly reconciled

War is hell. I agree. I also agree that war is much worse when it’s motivated by ideology, and not by something mundane like capturing women for sex. The ravisher doesn’t seek to kill his prize. He wants to keep her. The ideologue has a very different mindset.

I’ve written about ideology in the past, and I will write more in the future. But this column was about something else.

you continually write about male aggression as something more unique to polygamy.

No, that isn’t so. I’ve written a lot about male aggression and personal violence, and most of those articles make no mention of polygyny.

You have written before about how the lower rates of polygamy in southern africa can be tied to their lighter skin color.

You may be referring to this article of mine:

This masculinization of body build may be hormonally mediated. When Winkler and Christiansen (1993) studied two Namibian peoples, the weakly polygynous hunter gatherer !Kung and the highly polygynous agricultural Kavango, the latter were found to have markedly higher levels of both total testosterone and DHT. The authors suggested that lower levels of these hormones might account for the !Kung’s neotenous appearance, i.e., sparse body hair, small stature, pedomorphic morphology, and light yellowish skin.

I was writing about the Khoisan peoples of southwestern Africa. They have a lighter skin color and a smaller, less robust body frame than we see in the adjacent Bantu. This may be due to the lower incidence of polygyny among them and, hence, the lower intensity of male-male rivalry for access to women.

"The farming in this case is not traditional subsistence agriculture. It’s modern cash farming which often relies on migrant labor. "

In the Yoruba case the farming concerned is also subsistence farming and not solely modern cash cropping. The sources I cited refer also to traditional agriculture such as yam cultivation, since they appear to be discussing traditional practices in general.

"..in western Nigeria, the Yoruba men have traditionally specialized in food production, and women in transport, processing and trade."
Agricultural Labour Markets and Structural" Adjustment in Sub-Saharan Africa p. 51

“..in western Nigeria, the Yoruba men have traditionally specialized in food production, and women in transport, processing and trade.”
Agricultural Labour Markets and Structural” Adjustment in Sub-Saharan Africa p. 51
https://www.google.com/#q=traditional+yoruba+agriculture+male&tbm=bks

“Most of these self-employed women had to provide at least part of the food for the family as well as clothing and cash out of their own earnings;”

Even the above seems to indicate most of the women deriving the better part or at least a large proportion from their husbands, a far cry from woman as providing the majority and men as contributing little to nothing. The Yoruba are not the only "exception". The Fon and Ewe of Dahomey/ Southern Ghana also have strongly male farming systems. In (many)West African cultures, as I said, both sexes contribute, but in some much is done by men(more so in the savannah).
In Subsaharan Africa gender roles have varied considerably by region. There is a general difference between West and Central Africa, with the latter region’ generally having more a strongly female farming systems.
Even in central Africa gender roles have been varied and men often had important economic roles which varied by ethnic group and location(See the work of the ethno linguist Jan Vansina on early Central African cultures, such as his book, “Paths in the Rainforests” which covers early subsistence), usually clearing the land for planting, planting seeds/yams, and building and maintaining field fences (and houses). They also hunted and fished and were usually responsible for tending the oil palm.
Jane Guyer’s work on the precolonial farming systems of various, Central, and a few West African tribes showed sex roles were fairly complex often with several tasks performed by each sex, and the roles of men in farming sometimes greater in precolonial times.
See:
“Female Farming in Anthropology and African History” by Jane Guyer

According to Guyer, the agricultural role of men in some areas was weakened somewhat in more recent times by the introduction of new crops like cassava, because among other reasons it was considered a womens’ crop, being easier to grow than older crops. Relatively lucrative wage labor in the colonial period also caused men to be away from home for long stretches in some places.

I think their physical prowess is debatable, and I can say they underperform considerably in a variety of sports and physical realms that whites excel in, including strong man, MMA etc. competitions, and going back to height, Scandinavians are the tallest people in the world, along with the environmental component to height, lactose tolerance etc. But that isn’t what I want to focus on in this discussion.

“War is hell. I agree. I also agree that war is much worse when it’s motivated by ideology, and not by something mundane like capturing women for sex. The ravisher doesn’t seek to kill his prize. He wants to keep her. The ideologue has a very different mindset.”

I’m not sure what you’re getting at. My point is that, whether measured in war time or not, people worldwide in the past were incredibly violent, including europeans and east asians. War and violence in other spheres were intertwined because people back then were more violent, aggressive, sociopathic etc. Pinker has documented how war has generally become less barbaric as time has worn on.

“No, that isn’t so. I’ve written a lot about male aggression and personal violence, and most of those articles make no mention of polygyny.”

I meant when you discuss polygamy alone. My point is that you tie greater male aggression, violence etc. into higher rates of polygamy, but that can exist easily without it, and that seems be the case worldwide in pre-modern times. SS africa is routinely ranked as having among the world’s highest murder rates, but is equaled or even surpassed by latin america, and the middle east is easily up there too, despite both regions having far lower rates of polygamy.

Why do you write about high polygamy disposing men towards these things when there are countless examples that show they easily exist without it?

“You may be referring to this article of mine:”

No, I’m talking about southern african Bantu. You have remarked on their lighter skin color and lower rates of polygamy before, but their violence is arguably worse.

Do you have an example of a black country that is less violent than Sweden?

War and violence in other spheres were intertwined because people back then were more violent, aggressive, sociopathic etc. Pinker has documented how war has generally become less barbaric as time has worn on.

West Africa was where the Bantu expansion came from and there is more polygyny in west Africa than to the south or east. The most extreme black African populations are found in coastal West Africa. Senegal, which has the highest rate of polygyny of all, is often cited as epitomising the sub Saharan physical type

http://www.ifad.org/gender/learning/sector/agriculture/68.htm
Except in Senegal, the hoe is invariably of the traditional ‘chop-down-and-pull’ type, and with a short handle. [...] The women in the study focus groups noted that of all their tasks on the land, weeding with a hand-hoe was the hardest and most time consuming job, causing both fatigue and backache. A major reason for this are traditional hoes’ short handles, which necessitates women’s bending over almost double to use them. Only in Senegal, where inter-row cultivation with animal traction is usually practised and long-handled push-pull hoes are in use, was weeding seen as less difficult. [...] Attempts to introduce long-handled hoes, such as those by a German-financed project in Zimbabwe, have apparently been unsuccessful (at the time of the research).What are the factors that have made the hand hoe so resistant to design change and innovation? There is a widespread belief (except in Senegal) that weeding is performed properly only when the worker is bent double and armed with a short-handled hoe. People who use hoes with long handles (the Langi tribe in Uganda and the Fulani in Burkina Faso, who are mainly nomadic herders; prisoners; or workers on commercial farms) are considered to be lazy and incompetent. Men are usually the ones who buy the tools, including hoes, even though their wives are more likely to be the tools’ users. The study found that even if they acknowledge that the women need lighter or differently designed hoes, the men still choose the traditional ‘male’ model of hoe when making the actual purchase.[...] The study found that women farmers repeatedly complained about the hoe and said that they wanted a lighter one for weeding. But handle length is another issue: Women seem to feel that a longer handle is inappropriate for them, even though it would be more comfortable for them to use. [...] The study found no cases where new tools requiring a change in their user’s traditional working posture were introduced successfully.

” The most extreme black African populations are found in coastal West Africa.”

Among the darkest pigmented populations are also the southern Sudanese and certain other Nilotic groups, who rely more on herding than most west African cultures, as well as the Andaman islanders who are hunter gatherers.

The "Yoruba exception" doesn't seem so exceptional. The farming in this case is not traditional subsistence agriculture. It's modern cash farming which often relies on migrant labor. Even so, women still do most of the work

There are no doubt other reasons why polygamy prevails in the Yoruba country as in other regions of the world; but the two which seem to be most prominent in the minds of Yoruba farmers are that wives contribute much more to the family income than the value of their keep and that the dignity and standing of the family is enhanced by an increase of progeny. While these beliefs persist the institution of polygamy will be enduring, even in families which have otherwise accepted Christian doctrine. The Yoruba farmer argues that the increased output from his farms obtainable without cash expense when he has wives to help him outweighs the economic burden of providing more food, more clothing and larger houses. (Boserup, 2007, p. 29)

Economic relations between husband and wife among the Yoruba differ widely from the common practise of countries where wives are normally supported by their husbands. Only 5 per cent of the Yoruba woman in the sample reproduced in Table 5 received from their husbands everything they needed -- food, clothing and some cash -- and only 2 per cent of them did no work other than domestic activities. A large majority were self-employed (in agriculture, trade or crafts) and many helped a husband on his farm in addition to their self-employment and their domestic duties. Most of these self-employed women had to provide at least part of the food for the family as well as clothing and cash out of their own earnings; nevertheless they performed domestic duties for the husband and half of them also helped him on his farm. (Boserup, 2007, pp. 29-30)

The joint result of women's high rate of participation in agricultural work and their generally long working hours was that women, in nearly all the cases recorded, were found to do more than half of the agricultural work; in some cases they were found to do around 70 per cent and in one case nearly 80 per cent of the total. Thus the available quantitative information about work input by sex seems to indicate that even today village production in Africa south of the Sahara continues to be predominantly female farming. (Boserup, 2007, p. 10)

You believe africans are more physically developed on the whole than whites.

I believe they are physically more robust, with denser bones and a stronger musculature. That isn't a personal opinion. It's just the way things are.

even in the case of war, it’s not just about the enemy, it’s about things like how enemy civilian populations, prisoners of war etc. have been treated. You don’t have to look far at all in the past to see any civilization you can care to name committing incredible atrocities. I feel like this something you have never properly reconciled

War is hell. I agree. I also agree that war is much worse when it's motivated by ideology, and not by something mundane like capturing women for sex. The ravisher doesn't seek to kill his prize. He wants to keep her. The ideologue has a very different mindset.

I've written about ideology in the past, and I will write more in the future. But this column was about something else.

you continually write about male aggression as something more unique to polygamy.

No, that isn't so. I've written a lot about male aggression and personal violence, and most of those articles make no mention of polygyny.

You have written before about how the lower rates of polygamy in southern africa can be tied to their lighter skin color.

You may be referring to this article of mine:

This masculinization of body build may be hormonally mediated. When Winkler and Christiansen (1993) studied two Namibian peoples, the weakly polygynous hunter gatherer !Kung and the highly polygynous agricultural Kavango, the latter were found to have markedly higher levels of both total testosterone and DHT. The authors suggested that lower levels of these hormones might account for the !Kung’s neotenous appearance, i.e., sparse body hair, small stature, pedomorphic morphology, and light yellowish skin.

I was writing about the Khoisan peoples of southwestern Africa. They have a lighter skin color and a smaller, less robust body frame than we see in the adjacent Bantu. This may be due to the lower incidence of polygyny among them and, hence, the lower intensity of male-male rivalry for access to women.

“The farming in this case is not traditional subsistence agriculture. It’s modern cash farming which often relies on migrant labor. ”

In the Yoruba case the farming concerned is also subsistence farming and not solely modern cash cropping. The sources I cited refer also to traditional agriculture such as yam cultivation, since they appear to be discussing traditional practices in general.

“..in western Nigeria, the Yoruba men have traditionally specialized in food production, and women in transport, processing and trade.”
Agricultural Labour Markets and Structural” Adjustment in Sub-Saharan Africa p. 51

The "Yoruba exception" doesn't seem so exceptional. The farming in this case is not traditional subsistence agriculture. It's modern cash farming which often relies on migrant labor. Even so, women still do most of the work

There are no doubt other reasons why polygamy prevails in the Yoruba country as in other regions of the world; but the two which seem to be most prominent in the minds of Yoruba farmers are that wives contribute much more to the family income than the value of their keep and that the dignity and standing of the family is enhanced by an increase of progeny. While these beliefs persist the institution of polygamy will be enduring, even in families which have otherwise accepted Christian doctrine. The Yoruba farmer argues that the increased output from his farms obtainable without cash expense when he has wives to help him outweighs the economic burden of providing more food, more clothing and larger houses. (Boserup, 2007, p. 29)

Economic relations between husband and wife among the Yoruba differ widely from the common practise of countries where wives are normally supported by their husbands. Only 5 per cent of the Yoruba woman in the sample reproduced in Table 5 received from their husbands everything they needed -- food, clothing and some cash -- and only 2 per cent of them did no work other than domestic activities. A large majority were self-employed (in agriculture, trade or crafts) and many helped a husband on his farm in addition to their self-employment and their domestic duties. Most of these self-employed women had to provide at least part of the food for the family as well as clothing and cash out of their own earnings; nevertheless they performed domestic duties for the husband and half of them also helped him on his farm. (Boserup, 2007, pp. 29-30)

The joint result of women's high rate of participation in agricultural work and their generally long working hours was that women, in nearly all the cases recorded, were found to do more than half of the agricultural work; in some cases they were found to do around 70 per cent and in one case nearly 80 per cent of the total. Thus the available quantitative information about work input by sex seems to indicate that even today village production in Africa south of the Sahara continues to be predominantly female farming. (Boserup, 2007, p. 10)

You believe africans are more physically developed on the whole than whites.

I believe they are physically more robust, with denser bones and a stronger musculature. That isn't a personal opinion. It's just the way things are.

even in the case of war, it’s not just about the enemy, it’s about things like how enemy civilian populations, prisoners of war etc. have been treated. You don’t have to look far at all in the past to see any civilization you can care to name committing incredible atrocities. I feel like this something you have never properly reconciled

War is hell. I agree. I also agree that war is much worse when it's motivated by ideology, and not by something mundane like capturing women for sex. The ravisher doesn't seek to kill his prize. He wants to keep her. The ideologue has a very different mindset.

I've written about ideology in the past, and I will write more in the future. But this column was about something else.

you continually write about male aggression as something more unique to polygamy.

No, that isn't so. I've written a lot about male aggression and personal violence, and most of those articles make no mention of polygyny.

You have written before about how the lower rates of polygamy in southern africa can be tied to their lighter skin color.

You may be referring to this article of mine:

This masculinization of body build may be hormonally mediated. When Winkler and Christiansen (1993) studied two Namibian peoples, the weakly polygynous hunter gatherer !Kung and the highly polygynous agricultural Kavango, the latter were found to have markedly higher levels of both total testosterone and DHT. The authors suggested that lower levels of these hormones might account for the !Kung’s neotenous appearance, i.e., sparse body hair, small stature, pedomorphic morphology, and light yellowish skin.

I was writing about the Khoisan peoples of southwestern Africa. They have a lighter skin color and a smaller, less robust body frame than we see in the adjacent Bantu. This may be due to the lower incidence of polygyny among them and, hence, the lower intensity of male-male rivalry for access to women.

I believe they [Africans] are physically more robust, with denser bones and a stronger musculature. That isn’t a personal opinion. It’s just the way things are.

Does it hold for the Igbo (of which so much as been made)? [With better minds and bodies, they'd be on the way to being the new master race.]

When you reply to Chanda that no one says blacks are the same (meaning populations of blacks), isn’t it then unscientific to treat “Africans” as a natural kind?

I think their physical prowess is debatable, and I can say they underperform considerably in a variety of sports and physical realms that whites excel in, including strong man, MMA etc. competitions, and going back to height, Scandinavians are the tallest people in the world, along with the environmental component to height, lactose tolerance etc. But that isn't what I want to focus on in this discussion.

"War is hell. I agree. I also agree that war is much worse when it’s motivated by ideology, and not by something mundane like capturing women for sex. The ravisher doesn’t seek to kill his prize. He wants to keep her. The ideologue has a very different mindset."

I'm not sure what you're getting at. My point is that, whether measured in war time or not, people worldwide in the past were incredibly violent, including europeans and east asians. War and violence in other spheres were intertwined because people back then were more violent, aggressive, sociopathic etc. Pinker has documented how war has generally become less barbaric as time has worn on.

"No, that isn’t so. I’ve written a lot about male aggression and personal violence, and most of those articles make no mention of polygyny."

I meant when you discuss polygamy alone. My point is that you tie greater male aggression, violence etc. into higher rates of polygamy, but that can exist easily without it, and that seems be the case worldwide in pre-modern times. SS africa is routinely ranked as having among the world's highest murder rates, but is equaled or even surpassed by latin america, and the middle east is easily up there too, despite both regions having far lower rates of polygamy.

Why do you write about high polygamy disposing men towards these things when there are countless examples that show they easily exist without it?

"You may be referring to this article of mine:"

No, I'm talking about southern african Bantu. You have remarked on their lighter skin color and lower rates of polygamy before, but their violence is arguably worse.

Do you have an example of a black country that is less violent than Sweden?

War and violence in other spheres were intertwined because people back then were more violent, aggressive, sociopathic etc. Pinker has documented how war has generally become less barbaric as time has worn on.

No? What does that have to do with what I'm saying? Or falling birthrates and a hypothetical country where women are more violent than men?

Boko Haram's behavior is not atypical of what's been seen throughout the world in the more distant past either. I have never heard of the Senegalese as "often cited as epitomising the sub Saharan physical type" or that coastal west africans are the most "extreme black africans." The darkest west africans are in Senegambia and the Sahel region. Simlarly dark or even darker populations are found elsewhere further east and south. You're just spouting things with little backing there.

Do you have an example of a country where women are more violent that men? I believe Boko Haram are rather fond of woman stealing, so you have a close connection there between violence and sex.

http://www.martin-van-creveld.com/?p=433
Finally, as happened in 1618-48, the main victim is the civilian population. Just as in 1618-48, people are being robbed, despoiled, and killed. Just as in 1618-48 the slave trade, especially in nubile females who can be raped and young boys who can be conscripted, is undergoing a revival.

He states “that the influx of women into the military, far from representing some historical step in women’s unstoppable march toward liberation, is both symptom and cause of the decline of the military in question. The process was triggered by the introduction of nuclear weapons over 50 years ago. Since then, the armed forces of no developed country have fought a major war against a major opponent who was even remotely capable of putting its own national existence in danger; compared with the recent past, and with very few exceptions, all they have done was to engage in skirmishes.”4

He argues that this process has been ongoing for about 30 years, as has the rise of military contractors and mercenaries who are almost completely absent of female personnel. The former South African mercenary group Executive Outcomes and the private security group Military Professional Resources Incorporated founded by retired U.S. Army generals are two examples of the types of groups of which van Creveld is speaking. He states that “it might almost be said that those armed forces that have been forced to incorporate women no longer fight; whereas those that still fight have very few, if any, women.”5

Do you have an example of a black country that is less violent than Sweden?

War and violence in other spheres were intertwined because people back then were more violent, aggressive, sociopathic etc. Pinker has documented how war has generally become less barbaric as time has worn on.

Yes and birthrates have been falling too.

No? What does that have to do with what I’m saying? Or falling birthrates and a hypothetical country where women are more violent than men?

Boko Haram’s behavior is not atypical of what’s been seen throughout the world in the more distant past either. I have never heard of the Senegalese as “often cited as epitomising the sub Saharan physical type” or that coastal west africans are the most “extreme black africans.” The darkest west africans are in Senegambia and the Sahel region. Simlarly dark or even darker populations are found elsewhere further east and south. You’re just spouting things with little backing there.

My point is that you tie greater male aggression, violence etc. into higher rates of polygamy, but that can exist easily without it, and that seems be the case worldwide in pre-modern times

The opposite of polygynous men being violent would be monogamous women being more violent than men. So Sweden (which you brought up) being more violent than an African country, or any country have more female than male violence, would weight against the post's thesis. I don't think anyone expects that you can read a theory about Africa to explain European war, but Boko Haram have not just been guilty of opportunistic rapes, they actually conduct raids for the purposes of kidnapping hundreds of women. Boko Haram's fighters are mainly young single men in are in a polygynous society where women are in short supply. Surely you can see the incentive for men to steal women in such an environment, which would have been far more common previously.

Men are more robust and powerfully built than women and darker complexioned than women. Men are more promiscuous, and inclined to use the threat of violence it to get what they want (basically sex). For example a nightclub that is great place to hook up is often a great place to get into a fight. My reading is Africa and other historically female garden agriculture areas (where an extra wife is an asset rather than a drain on the husbands resources) are like a nightclub, there is more incentive for men to fight or intimidate there. The

The darkest people in Africa are in and around Senegal, which has the highest rates of polygyny and soils suitable for female farming systems. There is a similar system in Bougainville island WHICH ALSO HAS VERY DARK SKIN. Senegal has a rather good football team, and west African descended populations are well known for dominating power sports such as sprinting. If you have never read that the Senegal and Gambia locals are the most African of African types then you can't have read much on the subject.

Feminism seems to have mainly the function of imitating subsaharan African social institutions by female (pseudo) work participance and welfare.

Feminism seems to have mainly the function of imitating subsaharan African social institutions by female (pseudo) work participance and welfare.

Exactly. And we still see this pushing forward with the war against “slut shaming”, i.e. more encouragement for white women to have African style promiscuous sex lives.

However our system is worse in two big ways:

1) African women know “what’s what”, i.e. what to expect from their men–not much!
However, most white women (and others from civilizations–e.x. East Asian and Indians) actually have a fairly strong desire for bonding. They generally aren’t very emotionally happy with promiscuity. And they have the expectation that after slutting around when they hit 30, and their sex appeal is slipping away, they’ll be some prince charming who’ll swoop in and volunteer to devote his life’s work and earnings to her and her children in typical Euro-patriarchal fashion. In other words, feminism is teaching white women to behave like African’s, when they still have the genetic endowment, natural propensities and romantic\child-rearing expectations of civilized European women.

2) African women actually produce–that’s the African system, the women hoe and pick, the men drink and preen and fight to gain access to the women. Our women, outside traditional female “helping professions”, produce very little of value in their paid labor. So our female “independence” is based on massive rip-offs of productive males–and their actual wives and families–through taxation (welfare, gov. employment, grantees, public services their income doesn’t cover–ex. schooling for single mom’s kids) and unnecessary costs in the economy.

In short, Africa while pathetic, has a naturally evolved system of high female agricultural labor input because of it’s marginal land quality, and the polygynous that follows from it.

What we have is a fraud, where a small (and decreasing) share of productive men sticking to the civilized script produce this incredible prosperity for all, including large numbers of women–whom they mostly aren’t sleeping with–while said women whine about it.

Uh, your theory would only be true if Arabs were taller than Northern Europeans which is hilariously not the case.

Uh, your theory would only be true if Arabs were taller than Northern Europeans which is hilariously not the case.

Not so Myra. Arabs have a completely different route to polygyny. They–like a lot of peoples around the world–are pastoral. Food production basically depends on male protection of the flocks–aggression to protect territory. There is little to no female labor input outside the home. Women are not providing the food and can not provide for their own children with their own labor. In this sort of system, women are essentially like livestock\chattel–a man purchases or makes a deal for one for breeding purposes. There is often a bride price, rather than a dowry. And in pastoral economies, there tends to be a lot of endogamy, to build clans\tribes that can protect themselves. Women may be promised to relatives to build clan\tribe bonds.

There may be polygyny, but it comes simply from a man being rich enough to afford to support multiple wives and their children. Obviously in times of warfare when more men are killed off, polygyny rises.

Despite some similarities, these societies are very unlike African ones–patriarchal, rather than matrilineal, very little female independence and no female sexual freedom. Sexual relations are very well regulated rather than sloppy as in Africa. You don’t find a lot of African style illegitimacy.

The "Yoruba exception" doesn't seem so exceptional. The farming in this case is not traditional subsistence agriculture. It's modern cash farming which often relies on migrant labor. Even so, women still do most of the work

There are no doubt other reasons why polygamy prevails in the Yoruba country as in other regions of the world; but the two which seem to be most prominent in the minds of Yoruba farmers are that wives contribute much more to the family income than the value of their keep and that the dignity and standing of the family is enhanced by an increase of progeny. While these beliefs persist the institution of polygamy will be enduring, even in families which have otherwise accepted Christian doctrine. The Yoruba farmer argues that the increased output from his farms obtainable without cash expense when he has wives to help him outweighs the economic burden of providing more food, more clothing and larger houses. (Boserup, 2007, p. 29)

Economic relations between husband and wife among the Yoruba differ widely from the common practise of countries where wives are normally supported by their husbands. Only 5 per cent of the Yoruba woman in the sample reproduced in Table 5 received from their husbands everything they needed -- food, clothing and some cash -- and only 2 per cent of them did no work other than domestic activities. A large majority were self-employed (in agriculture, trade or crafts) and many helped a husband on his farm in addition to their self-employment and their domestic duties. Most of these self-employed women had to provide at least part of the food for the family as well as clothing and cash out of their own earnings; nevertheless they performed domestic duties for the husband and half of them also helped him on his farm. (Boserup, 2007, pp. 29-30)

The joint result of women's high rate of participation in agricultural work and their generally long working hours was that women, in nearly all the cases recorded, were found to do more than half of the agricultural work; in some cases they were found to do around 70 per cent and in one case nearly 80 per cent of the total. Thus the available quantitative information about work input by sex seems to indicate that even today village production in Africa south of the Sahara continues to be predominantly female farming. (Boserup, 2007, p. 10)

You believe africans are more physically developed on the whole than whites.

I believe they are physically more robust, with denser bones and a stronger musculature. That isn't a personal opinion. It's just the way things are.

even in the case of war, it’s not just about the enemy, it’s about things like how enemy civilian populations, prisoners of war etc. have been treated. You don’t have to look far at all in the past to see any civilization you can care to name committing incredible atrocities. I feel like this something you have never properly reconciled

War is hell. I agree. I also agree that war is much worse when it's motivated by ideology, and not by something mundane like capturing women for sex. The ravisher doesn't seek to kill his prize. He wants to keep her. The ideologue has a very different mindset.

I've written about ideology in the past, and I will write more in the future. But this column was about something else.

you continually write about male aggression as something more unique to polygamy.

No, that isn't so. I've written a lot about male aggression and personal violence, and most of those articles make no mention of polygyny.

You have written before about how the lower rates of polygamy in southern africa can be tied to their lighter skin color.

You may be referring to this article of mine:

This masculinization of body build may be hormonally mediated. When Winkler and Christiansen (1993) studied two Namibian peoples, the weakly polygynous hunter gatherer !Kung and the highly polygynous agricultural Kavango, the latter were found to have markedly higher levels of both total testosterone and DHT. The authors suggested that lower levels of these hormones might account for the !Kung’s neotenous appearance, i.e., sparse body hair, small stature, pedomorphic morphology, and light yellowish skin.

I was writing about the Khoisan peoples of southwestern Africa. They have a lighter skin color and a smaller, less robust body frame than we see in the adjacent Bantu. This may be due to the lower incidence of polygyny among them and, hence, the lower intensity of male-male rivalry for access to women.

With link:

“..in western Nigeria, the Yoruba men have traditionally specialized in food production, and women in transport, processing and trade.”
Agricultural Labour Markets and Structural” Adjustment in Sub-Saharan Africa p. 51

“Most of these self-employed women had to provide at least part of the food for the family as well as clothing and cash out of their own earnings;”

Even the above seems to indicate most of the women deriving the better part or at least a large proportion from their husbands, a far cry from woman as providing the majority and men as contributing little to nothing. The Yoruba are not the only “exception”. The Fon and Ewe of Dahomey/ Southern Ghana also have strongly male farming systems. In (many)West African cultures, as I said, both sexes contribute, but in some much is done by men(more so in the savannah).
In Subsaharan Africa gender roles have varied considerably by region. There is a general difference between West and Central Africa, with the latter region’ generally having more a strongly female farming systems.
Even in central Africa gender roles have been varied and men often had important economic roles which varied by ethnic group and location(See the work of the ethno linguist Jan Vansina on early Central African cultures, such as his book, “Paths in the Rainforests” which covers early subsistence), usually clearing the land for planting, planting seeds/yams, and building and maintaining field fences (and houses). They also hunted and fished and were usually responsible for tending the oil palm.
Jane Guyer’s work on the precolonial farming systems of various, Central, and a few West African tribes showed sex roles were fairly complex often with several tasks performed by each sex, and the roles of men in farming sometimes greater in precolonial times.
See:
“Female Farming in Anthropology and African History” by Jane Guyer

According to Guyer, the agricultural role of men in some areas was weakened somewhat in more recent times by the introduction of new crops like cassava, because among other reasons it was considered a womens’ crop, being easier to grow than older crops. Relatively lucrative wage labor in the colonial period also caused men to be away from home for long stretches in some places.

“Cultivation of the ancient staples is characterized by the interdigitation of male and female…supported by an ctivity-specific cultural definition of the division of labor…infused with ritual symbolism.
…As Forde (1964) described cultivation by the Yako of Southwestern Nigeria, ownership of seed yamsare planyed by both men and women working together. Weeding is female; stalking and training the vines is male. Harvesting is a joint activity; washing and carrying are female. Storage barns are built by men, but ownership of the harvested yams is individual according to ownership of the seed yams.

Audrey Richard’s.. work…of the Bemba (of Zambia; my parenthesis) provides a comparable example for the indigenous cereal Millet. Tree pollarding was carried out by groups of young men following the chief’s ritual declaration…
Women stacked the branches, men put fire to the fields, and then men planted with their wives following behind to cover up the seed. Men fenced the field against wild animals, while women did whatever tending was required and were exclusively responsible for reaping.”
“The contrast with the common mode of cultivation of both of the new world staples is striking. …Throughout Africa Cassava is grown with …no ritualizaton at all. In many regions it is primarily a female crop.”
“..Archaeological work on the oldest African farming system…, the Kintampo culture in Ghana, suggests a savannah border ecology..Extrapolating from the ethnographyone can speculate that both types of crop may have been grown under the interdigitated activity specific, sacralized regime..of current cultivation methods for the old staples. None of the old staples was monopolized by female labor.”

“..in western Nigeria, the Yoruba men have traditionally specialized in food production, and women in transport, processing and trade.”
Agricultural Labour Markets and Structural” Adjustment in Sub-Saharan Africa p. 51
https://www.google.com/#q=traditional+yoruba+agriculture+male&tbm=bks

“Most of these self-employed women had to provide at least part of the food for the family as well as clothing and cash out of their own earnings;”

Even the above seems to indicate most of the women deriving the better part or at least a large proportion from their husbands, a far cry from woman as providing the majority and men as contributing little to nothing. The Yoruba are not the only "exception". The Fon and Ewe of Dahomey/ Southern Ghana also have strongly male farming systems. In (many)West African cultures, as I said, both sexes contribute, but in some much is done by men(more so in the savannah).
In Subsaharan Africa gender roles have varied considerably by region. There is a general difference between West and Central Africa, with the latter region’ generally having more a strongly female farming systems.
Even in central Africa gender roles have been varied and men often had important economic roles which varied by ethnic group and location(See the work of the ethno linguist Jan Vansina on early Central African cultures, such as his book, “Paths in the Rainforests” which covers early subsistence), usually clearing the land for planting, planting seeds/yams, and building and maintaining field fences (and houses). They also hunted and fished and were usually responsible for tending the oil palm.
Jane Guyer’s work on the precolonial farming systems of various, Central, and a few West African tribes showed sex roles were fairly complex often with several tasks performed by each sex, and the roles of men in farming sometimes greater in precolonial times.
See:
“Female Farming in Anthropology and African History” by Jane Guyer

According to Guyer, the agricultural role of men in some areas was weakened somewhat in more recent times by the introduction of new crops like cassava, because among other reasons it was considered a womens’ crop, being easier to grow than older crops. Relatively lucrative wage labor in the colonial period also caused men to be away from home for long stretches in some places.

“Cultivation of the ancient staples is characterized by the interdigitation of male and female…supported by an ctivity-specific cultural definition of the division of labor…infused with ritual symbolism.
…As Forde (1964) described cultivation by the Yako of Southwestern Nigeria, ownership of seed yamsare planyed by both men and women working together. Weeding is female; stalking and training the vines is male. Harvesting is a joint activity; washing and carrying are female. Storage barns are built by men, but ownership of the harvested yams is individual according to ownership of the seed yams.

Audrey Richard’s.. work…of the Bemba (of Zambia; my parenthesis) provides a comparable example for the indigenous cereal Millet. Tree pollarding was carried out by groups of young men following the chief’s ritual declaration…
Women stacked the branches, men put fire to the fields, and then men planted with their wives following behind to cover up the seed. Men fenced the field against wild animals, while women did whatever tending was required and were exclusively responsible for reaping.”
“The contrast with the common mode of cultivation of both of the new world staples is striking. …Throughout Africa Cassava is grown with …no ritualizaton at all. In many regions it is primarily a female crop.”
“..Archaeological work on the oldest African farming system…, the Kintampo culture in Ghana, suggests a savannah border ecology..Extrapolating from the ethnographyone can speculate that both types of crop may have been grown under the interdigitated activity specific, sacralized regime..of current cultivation methods for the old staples. None of the old staples was monopolized by female labor.”

I think you are also missing the issue of pre-modern warfare with respect to polygamy. Before the industrial age, warfare consisted particularly in Europe and Asia of often fairly large armies, organized and fed by a central authority, that would engage (particularly among Europeans) in shock battles of annihilation of the enemy.

You can see this pattern with the classical Greek phalanx. Lots and lots of small olive farmers, ranked up in a row, advancing over the battlefield AT A WALK, with spears in front of them, essentially a giant impaling machine. See also the Swiss Pikemen 1,500 years later. The Roman innovation was to create columns of heavily armored (in the front only) infantry men who would form up in lines with shields overlapped with short stabbing swords or spears. A giant stabbing machine. To a lesser extent, this was how the Chinese fought as well. In a line. Organized. In a battle of mass annihilation.

This was a VERY successful way of war. Non Westerners tended to get destroyed, whenever Western forces were well organized and in significant numbers. It required however:

High male cooperation and trust.
Lots of discipline to stay in line, keep the formation, and thus the fighting effectiveness.
A large supply of men used to hard, repeated, physical labor in farming.

Herodotus and others compared fighting to reaping an especially bloody harvest. Small olive farmers in particular seemed very effective in the Med for a very long time.

By contrast, the African way of fighting seemed to be a few charges, massacre and loot what one could, and then run away. Decisive battles continued to the enemy’s annihilation seemed not possible even with Shaka Zulu’s forces, they were not organized or disciplined to the extent required. This also seems to have been the Aztec and Inca way of fighting, according to Conquistadors, and characterized the way of fighting of the Sioux, the Comanche, the Apache, the Seminole, and the Iroquois.

It seems shock battles of annihilation with men all in a line and able to stand up to hours of slaughter and battle to destroy the enemy totally, are both very successful and require a strong population of monogamous men in a nuclear family.

I know Pinker thinks the world is getting less violent, the upcoming battle for Europe, between natives and half the Third World wanting to move there, is likely to prove him decisively wrong. Europe has nice things and the people who live there if they want to keep them will have to kill to do so. It has been ever thus.

Apache and Comanche raiding was primarily done to steal horses and cattle. If possible raiding parties tried to get away with horses and cattle without having to actually fight anybody. It is true that if an Apache was killed on a raid his kinsmen would feel it necessary to kill somebody from the village they had raided but in general the Apaches and Comanches had no genocidal intentions. Both were totally dependent on raiding and they knew that if they wiped out or drove away the Spanish they themselves would be doomed.

No? What does that have to do with what I'm saying? Or falling birthrates and a hypothetical country where women are more violent than men?

Boko Haram's behavior is not atypical of what's been seen throughout the world in the more distant past either. I have never heard of the Senegalese as "often cited as epitomising the sub Saharan physical type" or that coastal west africans are the most "extreme black africans." The darkest west africans are in Senegambia and the Sahel region. Simlarly dark or even darker populations are found elsewhere further east and south. You're just spouting things with little backing there.

My point is that you tie greater male aggression, violence etc. into higher rates of polygamy, but that can exist easily without it, and that seems be the case worldwide in pre-modern times

The opposite of polygynous men being violent would be monogamous women being more violent than men. So Sweden (which you brought up) being more violent than an African country, or any country have more female than male violence, would weight against the post’s thesis. I don’t think anyone expects that you can read a theory about Africa to explain European war, but Boko Haram have not just been guilty of opportunistic rapes, they actually conduct raids for the purposes of kidnapping hundreds of women. Boko Haram’s fighters are mainly young single men in are in a polygynous society where women are in short supply. Surely you can see the incentive for men to steal women in such an environment, which would have been far more common previously.

Men are more robust and powerfully built than women and darker complexioned than women. Men are more promiscuous, and inclined to use the threat of violence it to get what they want (basically sex). For example a nightclub that is great place to hook up is often a great place to get into a fight. My reading is Africa and other historically female garden agriculture areas (where an extra wife is an asset rather than a drain on the husbands resources) are like a nightclub, there is more incentive for men to fight or intimidate there. The

The darkest people in Africa are in and around Senegal, which has the highest rates of polygyny and soils suitable for female farming systems. There is a similar system in Bougainville island WHICH ALSO HAS VERY DARK SKIN. Senegal has a rather good football team, and west African descended populations are well known for dominating power sports such as sprinting. If you have never read that the Senegal and Gambia locals are the most African of African types then you can’t have read much on the subject.

I'm still having a hard time following you here, but that isn't atypical for your posts. and I'm not alone. Nothing I said indicates anything about that with female violence. My point is that extremely high rates of interpersonal violence in the public/social sphere can easily exist without high rates of polygamy. A society where women are more violent than men is an extreme rarity in human history. And surely you can see where Boko Haram's behavior isn't very atypical and not exclusive to a high polygamous society given things like the Mongols or eurasian muslims.

The darkest people in Africa are found in South Sudan, not Senegal. Your map (which isn't very exact) shows several other areas in Africa with equally dark skin, but it's clear South Sudan is the darkest. How exactly is Bougainville so similar to Senegal given they had much less advanced agriculture and were a stone age island people? Africans dominate in certain sports, but not all. I have variously heard (and gotten the impression) they have greater lower body strength as opposed to upper. And no, I'm sorry that I haven't come across the idea Senegambians are the most "African of African types", even though I have read on the subject. Aside from skin color (which you are wrong about), how are they the most extreme type?

What I’m saying is that for population genetics, populations are the appropriate natural kind, not continents.

I thought the post was comparing two populations within Africa, and trying to show how black Africans (hoe farmers) became big and strong and aggressive by contrast with hunter gatherers. A novel set of selection pressures producing changes to a hunter gatherer population what I thought the post was about

Scandinavians are the tallest people in the world, along with the environmental component to height,

If I say that polygyny has certain evolutionary consequences, I’m not saying that those consequences are caused only by polygyny. Yes, other selection pressures can cause an increase in body size.

whether measured in war time or not, people worldwide in the past were incredibly violent, including europeans and east asians.

If we’re talking about personal violence (and not state-organized violence, i.e., war), they were not equally violent. High-polygyny societies seem to have experienced a higher level of personal male violence than low-polygyny societies.

SS africa is routinely ranked as having among the world’s highest murder rates, but is equaled or even surpassed by latin america

Surpassed? You’re also referring to certain Latin American countries, not to Latin America in general.

You have remarked on their lighter skin color and lower rates of polygamy before

I’m not sure what you’re referring to. I remember writing about southern Africans having a higher rate of albinism, but that’s not the same thing as saying that southern Africans in general are lighter-skinned.

In the Yoruba case the farming concerned is also subsistence farming and not solely modern cash cropping. The sources I cited refer also to traditional agriculture such as yam cultivation, since they appear to be discussing traditional practices in general.

Yam cultivation is often reserved for men in many West African societies, but the bulk of food production is done by women.

Jm, (Jim?) I appreciate your lengthy comments, but you’re starting to challenge not only my opinion but the opinion of almost any anthropologist, including Jack Goody and Ester Boserup, who has written on agriculture in West Africa. Male-dominated farming is the exception not the rule in West Africa. It is also a later development, as seen in the greater reliance on pastoralism and its increasing prevalence as one moves away from the coast and toward the savannah and Sahel.

Does it hold for the Igbo (of which so much as been made)? [With better minds and bodies, they'd be on the way to being the new master race.]

With regard to intelligence, we need more data (and not simply data on academic performance). The Igbo clearly do better than other Nigerians, but I’ve yet to find anything on IQ itself.

The Igbo tried to become the masters of Nigeria once (the military coup before the civil war), and that was a big mistake.

By contrast, the African way of fighting seemed to be a few charges, massacre and loot what one could, and then run away. Decisive battles continued to the enemy’s annihilation seemed not possible even with Shaka Zulu’s forces, they were not organized or disciplined to the extent required.

Yes, a high-polygyny society cannot easily develop into an advanced society with State formation. There is simply too much male-male rivalry. And the problem is not limited to warfare. This is part of the larger problem of building high-trust societies.

Even the above seems to indicate most of the women deriving the better part or at least a large proportion from their husbands, a far cry from woman as providing the majority and men as contributing little to nothing. The Yoruba are not the only “exception”. The Fon and Ewe of Dahomey/ Southern Ghana also have strongly male farming systems. In (many)West African cultures, as I said, both sexes contribute, but in some much is done by men(more so in the savannah).

If you’re not sure what Ester Boserup meant, why not read the rest of her book? She states clearly that African women participate more than African men in farming:

Africa is the region of female farming par excellence. In many African tribes, nearly all the tasks connected with food production continue to be left to women. [...]

Of course, there are exceptions to this general rule. In some African communities with shifting cultivation, the women have some help from the men beyond the felling of trees. For instance, men may hoe the land or take part in the preparatory hoeing before the crops are planted, but even with such help the bulk of the work with the food crops is done by women. [...]

It appears that forty years ago female farming with no male help except for the felling of trees predominated in the whole of the Congo region, in large parts of South East and East Africa and in parts of West Africa. Female farming was far more widespread than systems of male farming and it also seems to have been more widespread than systems of predominantly female farming with some help from males in cultivation; this latter type of farming was characteristic of the region immediately south of the Sahara. (Boserup, 2007, pp. 4-5)

The joint result of women’s high rate of participation in agricultural work and their generally long working hours was that women, in nearly all the cases recorded, were found to do more than half of the agricultural work; in some cases they were found to do around 70 per cent and in one case nearly 80 per cent of the total. Thus the available quantitative information about work input by sex seems to indicate that even today village production in Africa south of the Sahara continues to be predominantly female farming. (Boserup, 2007, p. 10)

Hence, the real difference between the use of the African and Asian agricultural labour force, as revealed by a comparison of the two tables, is that Asian men — the operators of the plough– must work longer hours than African men, while many of the wives of Asian men are free from field work. (Boserup, 2007, p. 14)

[..] female family labour accounts for a much smaller part of the total agricultural work in the Asian than in the African village. In nearly all cases recorded in Table 1, the female African family members did more than half of the work in agriculture; the comparable figure for Asian cultivator families was less than one fifth [...] (Boserup, 2007, p. 14)

Boserup also states that “male farming” in Dahomey and Nigeria usually involves immigrant seasonal workers from the north (where men participate more in farming):

The table includes a few cases of ‘male farming’. In the sample for Dahomey, and in the sample from Nigeria (which refers to a cocoa producing region inhabited by members of the Yoruba tribe), men’s average working hours in agriculture were ten times longer than those of women. Nevertheless, average hours of work for men, at least in the case of Nigeria, were not much longer than is typical for African villages generally. This was possible because the absence of any considerable female contribution to agricultural work was compensated by the use of hired workers for more than 40 per cent of agricultural work. These were immigrant seasonal workers from the Northern Regions of Nigeria coming in to help with the cocoa crops, and whom the farmers could afford to use because cocoa production was highly profitable at the time (during the Korean boom) when the sample study was made. (Boserup, 2007, p. 11)

"If we’re talking about personal violence (and not state-organized violence, i.e., war), they were not equally violent. High-polygyny societies seem to have experienced a higher level of personal male violence than low-polygyny societies."

What evidence do you have to back this up? The murder rates of European countries were dramatically higher in the past (which you have written on), comparable to african americans and other third and/or world countries. There is no reason to expect that a people who routinely engage in incredible atrocities in war shouldn't extend this to the personal sphere. Do you think a people like the mongols, who routinely mobilized their entire male population into committing massacres and atrocities in war wouldn't experience high personal violence? Mongolia today also has a fairly high murder rate.

This is the first time I have ever seen you claim high polygyny societies experience higher levels of personal male violence than vice versa. High levels of male violence are likely an inevitability with high polygyny societies, but low polygyny is not even remotely a guarantee for low violence.

"Surpassed? You’re also referring to certain Latin American countries, not to Latin America in general."

Yes, I meant specific Latin American countries, sorry. And yes, some latin american countries do surpass sub-saharan african ones, I'm surprised you'd actually question this. Honduras and Colombia are good examples, and there's the behavior of Mexican drug cartels. Honduras has for the past several years had a murder rate of close to 100/100k, and given how incredibly corrupt the police are, that's very likely a considerable underestimate, which is the highest in the world. And it's murder rates even before then were very high, usually in the 40's to 50's and often spiked even higher. Plenty of muslim countries like Pakistan (just look up Karachi's crime), Afghanistan etc. would register incredibly high murder rates if properly documented, despite their much lower rates of polygamy. Nevermind what sort of terrorist groups and such middle eastern countries often produce.

"I’m not sure what you’re referring to. I remember writing about southern Africans having a higher rate of albinism, but that’s not the same thing as saying that southern Africans in general are lighter-skinned."

I distinctively remember you writing on this, but I can't recall the exact post. Southern african bantus are indeed lighter, and I recall you also claiming they have lower rates of polygyny (and was indicated in a map you've posted), but now you seem to be claiming this is only a phenomenon of the past 150 years.

Scandinavians are the tallest people in the world, along with the environmental component to height,

If I say that polygyny has certain evolutionary consequences, I'm not saying that those consequences are caused only by polygyny. Yes, other selection pressures can cause an increase in body size.

whether measured in war time or not, people worldwide in the past were incredibly violent, including europeans and east asians.

If we're talking about personal violence (and not state-organized violence, i.e., war), they were not equally violent. High-polygyny societies seem to have experienced a higher level of personal male violence than low-polygyny societies.

SS africa is routinely ranked as having among the world’s highest murder rates, but is equaled or even surpassed by latin america

Surpassed? You're also referring to certain Latin American countries, not to Latin America in general.

You have remarked on their lighter skin color and lower rates of polygamy before

I'm not sure what you're referring to. I remember writing about southern Africans having a higher rate of albinism, but that's not the same thing as saying that southern Africans in general are lighter-skinned.

In the Yoruba case the farming concerned is also subsistence farming and not solely modern cash cropping. The sources I cited refer also to traditional agriculture such as yam cultivation, since they appear to be discussing traditional practices in general.

Yam cultivation is often reserved for men in many West African societies, but the bulk of food production is done by women.

Jm, (Jim?) I appreciate your lengthy comments, but you're starting to challenge not only my opinion but the opinion of almost any anthropologist, including Jack Goody and Ester Boserup, who has written on agriculture in West Africa. Male-dominated farming is the exception not the rule in West Africa. It is also a later development, as seen in the greater reliance on pastoralism and its increasing prevalence as one moves away from the coast and toward the savannah and Sahel.

Does it hold for the Igbo (of which so much as been made)? [With better minds and bodies, they'd be on the way to being the new master race.]

With regard to intelligence, we need more data (and not simply data on academic performance). The Igbo clearly do better than other Nigerians, but I've yet to find anything on IQ itself.

The Igbo tried to become the masters of Nigeria once (the military coup before the civil war), and that was a big mistake.

By contrast, the African way of fighting seemed to be a few charges, massacre and loot what one could, and then run away. Decisive battles continued to the enemy’s annihilation seemed not possible even with Shaka Zulu’s forces, they were not organized or disciplined to the extent required.

Yes, a high-polygyny society cannot easily develop into an advanced society with State formation. There is simply too much male-male rivalry. And the problem is not limited to warfare. This is part of the larger problem of building high-trust societies.

Even the above seems to indicate most of the women deriving the better part or at least a large proportion from their husbands, a far cry from woman as providing the majority and men as contributing little to nothing. The Yoruba are not the only “exception”. The Fon and Ewe of Dahomey/ Southern Ghana also have strongly male farming systems. In (many)West African cultures, as I said, both sexes contribute, but in some much is done by men(more so in the savannah).

If you're not sure what Ester Boserup meant, why not read the rest of her book? She states clearly that African women participate more than African men in farming:

Africa is the region of female farming par excellence. In many African tribes, nearly all the tasks connected with food production continue to be left to women. [...]

Of course, there are exceptions to this general rule. In some African communities with shifting cultivation, the women have some help from the men beyond the felling of trees. For instance, men may hoe the land or take part in the preparatory hoeing before the crops are planted, but even with such help the bulk of the work with the food crops is done by women. [...]

It appears that forty years ago female farming with no male help except for the felling of trees predominated in the whole of the Congo region, in large parts of South East and East Africa and in parts of West Africa. Female farming was far more widespread than systems of male farming and it also seems to have been more widespread than systems of predominantly female farming with some help from males in cultivation; this latter type of farming was characteristic of the region immediately south of the Sahara. (Boserup, 2007, pp. 4-5)

The joint result of women’s high rate of participation in agricultural work and their generally long working hours was that women, in nearly all the cases recorded, were found to do more than half of the agricultural work; in some cases they were found to do around 70 per cent and in one case nearly 80 per cent of the total. Thus the available quantitative information about work input by sex seems to indicate that even today village production in Africa south of the Sahara continues to be predominantly female farming. (Boserup, 2007, p. 10)

Hence, the real difference between the use of the African and Asian agricultural labour force, as revealed by a comparison of the two tables, is that Asian men -- the operators of the plough-- must work longer hours than African men, while many of the wives of Asian men are free from field work. (Boserup, 2007, p. 14)

[..] female family labour accounts for a much smaller part of the total agricultural work in the Asian than in the African village. In nearly all cases recorded in Table 1, the female African family members did more than half of the work in agriculture; the comparable figure for Asian cultivator families was less than one fifth [...] (Boserup, 2007, p. 14)

Boserup also states that "male farming" in Dahomey and Nigeria usually involves immigrant seasonal workers from the north (where men participate more in farming):

The table includes a few cases of 'male farming'. In the sample for Dahomey, and in the sample from Nigeria (which refers to a cocoa producing region inhabited by members of the Yoruba tribe), men's average working hours in agriculture were ten times longer than those of women. Nevertheless, average hours of work for men, at least in the case of Nigeria, were not much longer than is typical for African villages generally. This was possible because the absence of any considerable female contribution to agricultural work was compensated by the use of hired workers for more than 40 per cent of agricultural work. These were immigrant seasonal workers from the Northern Regions of Nigeria coming in to help with the cocoa crops, and whom the farmers could afford to use because cocoa production was highly profitable at the time (during the Korean boom) when the sample study was made. (Boserup, 2007, p. 11)

”Surpassed? You’re also referring to certain Latin American countries, not to Latin America in general.”

And significant part of this violence is caused exactly by the presence of afro-descendents.

No, sorry, countries like Colombia, Mexico, Honduras etc. have minority or miniscule black populations. Native americans were plenty violent (and arguably among the most violent on record) in the case of the Aztecs, Sioux etc. and still are if you look at people like the Yanomamo, or even modern US native americans (who are heavily white, but still.) And through all of this, nearly all of the countries in question are overwhelmingly mestizo. Try again.

“Yam cultivation is often reserved for men in many West African societies, but the bulk of food production is done by women.”

Yams are an indigenous and ancient staple (predating cocoyams and long predating cassava and maize) as discussed by Guyer. Their ancient/traditional role among many west african tribes is significant. The igbo are not an exception in this way.

“Jm, (Jim?) I appreciate your lengthy comments, but you’re starting to challenge not only my opinion but the opinion of almost any anthropologist, including Jack Goody and Ester Boserup, who has written on agriculture in West Africa. Male-dominated farming is the exception not the rule in West Africa. It is also a later development, as seen in the greater reliance on pastoralism and its increasing prevalence as one moves away from the coast and toward the savannah and Sahel.”
I would be surprised if many modern anthropologists significantly attributed male farming in the savannah to pastoralism, as the animal drawn plough was not typically used there and manuring was limited.
Hermann Baumann (ca. 1930′s) believed the prevalence of cereal grains( over root crops). to be responsible, due to their longer storage potential. The greater prevalence of pastoralism in the savannah/sahel than the forest is usually attributed to the tsetse fly’s effects on cattle.

"Yams are an indigenous and ancient staple (predating cocoyams and long predating cassava and maize) as discussed by Guyer. Their ancient/traditional role among many west african tribes is significant. The igbo are not an exception in this way."

Do you have any other references for this, and anything specific in Guyer? I've had trouble finding information on the domestication of african food crops. It's helpful in these discussions given how often people claim africans never developed agriculture, or atleast not indigenously.

Scandinavians are the tallest people in the world, along with the environmental component to height,

If I say that polygyny has certain evolutionary consequences, I'm not saying that those consequences are caused only by polygyny. Yes, other selection pressures can cause an increase in body size.

whether measured in war time or not, people worldwide in the past were incredibly violent, including europeans and east asians.

If we're talking about personal violence (and not state-organized violence, i.e., war), they were not equally violent. High-polygyny societies seem to have experienced a higher level of personal male violence than low-polygyny societies.

SS africa is routinely ranked as having among the world’s highest murder rates, but is equaled or even surpassed by latin america

Surpassed? You're also referring to certain Latin American countries, not to Latin America in general.

You have remarked on their lighter skin color and lower rates of polygamy before

I'm not sure what you're referring to. I remember writing about southern Africans having a higher rate of albinism, but that's not the same thing as saying that southern Africans in general are lighter-skinned.

In the Yoruba case the farming concerned is also subsistence farming and not solely modern cash cropping. The sources I cited refer also to traditional agriculture such as yam cultivation, since they appear to be discussing traditional practices in general.

Yam cultivation is often reserved for men in many West African societies, but the bulk of food production is done by women.

Jm, (Jim?) I appreciate your lengthy comments, but you're starting to challenge not only my opinion but the opinion of almost any anthropologist, including Jack Goody and Ester Boserup, who has written on agriculture in West Africa. Male-dominated farming is the exception not the rule in West Africa. It is also a later development, as seen in the greater reliance on pastoralism and its increasing prevalence as one moves away from the coast and toward the savannah and Sahel.

Does it hold for the Igbo (of which so much as been made)? [With better minds and bodies, they'd be on the way to being the new master race.]

With regard to intelligence, we need more data (and not simply data on academic performance). The Igbo clearly do better than other Nigerians, but I've yet to find anything on IQ itself.

The Igbo tried to become the masters of Nigeria once (the military coup before the civil war), and that was a big mistake.

By contrast, the African way of fighting seemed to be a few charges, massacre and loot what one could, and then run away. Decisive battles continued to the enemy’s annihilation seemed not possible even with Shaka Zulu’s forces, they were not organized or disciplined to the extent required.

Yes, a high-polygyny society cannot easily develop into an advanced society with State formation. There is simply too much male-male rivalry. And the problem is not limited to warfare. This is part of the larger problem of building high-trust societies.

Even the above seems to indicate most of the women deriving the better part or at least a large proportion from their husbands, a far cry from woman as providing the majority and men as contributing little to nothing. The Yoruba are not the only “exception”. The Fon and Ewe of Dahomey/ Southern Ghana also have strongly male farming systems. In (many)West African cultures, as I said, both sexes contribute, but in some much is done by men(more so in the savannah).

If you're not sure what Ester Boserup meant, why not read the rest of her book? She states clearly that African women participate more than African men in farming:

Africa is the region of female farming par excellence. In many African tribes, nearly all the tasks connected with food production continue to be left to women. [...]

Of course, there are exceptions to this general rule. In some African communities with shifting cultivation, the women have some help from the men beyond the felling of trees. For instance, men may hoe the land or take part in the preparatory hoeing before the crops are planted, but even with such help the bulk of the work with the food crops is done by women. [...]

It appears that forty years ago female farming with no male help except for the felling of trees predominated in the whole of the Congo region, in large parts of South East and East Africa and in parts of West Africa. Female farming was far more widespread than systems of male farming and it also seems to have been more widespread than systems of predominantly female farming with some help from males in cultivation; this latter type of farming was characteristic of the region immediately south of the Sahara. (Boserup, 2007, pp. 4-5)

The joint result of women’s high rate of participation in agricultural work and their generally long working hours was that women, in nearly all the cases recorded, were found to do more than half of the agricultural work; in some cases they were found to do around 70 per cent and in one case nearly 80 per cent of the total. Thus the available quantitative information about work input by sex seems to indicate that even today village production in Africa south of the Sahara continues to be predominantly female farming. (Boserup, 2007, p. 10)

Hence, the real difference between the use of the African and Asian agricultural labour force, as revealed by a comparison of the two tables, is that Asian men -- the operators of the plough-- must work longer hours than African men, while many of the wives of Asian men are free from field work. (Boserup, 2007, p. 14)

[..] female family labour accounts for a much smaller part of the total agricultural work in the Asian than in the African village. In nearly all cases recorded in Table 1, the female African family members did more than half of the work in agriculture; the comparable figure for Asian cultivator families was less than one fifth [...] (Boserup, 2007, p. 14)

Boserup also states that "male farming" in Dahomey and Nigeria usually involves immigrant seasonal workers from the north (where men participate more in farming):

The table includes a few cases of 'male farming'. In the sample for Dahomey, and in the sample from Nigeria (which refers to a cocoa producing region inhabited by members of the Yoruba tribe), men's average working hours in agriculture were ten times longer than those of women. Nevertheless, average hours of work for men, at least in the case of Nigeria, were not much longer than is typical for African villages generally. This was possible because the absence of any considerable female contribution to agricultural work was compensated by the use of hired workers for more than 40 per cent of agricultural work. These were immigrant seasonal workers from the Northern Regions of Nigeria coming in to help with the cocoa crops, and whom the farmers could afford to use because cocoa production was highly profitable at the time (during the Korean boom) when the sample study was made. (Boserup, 2007, p. 11)

My point is that you tie greater male aggression, violence etc. into higher rates of polygamy, but that can exist easily without it, and that seems be the case worldwide in pre-modern times

The opposite of polygynous men being violent would be monogamous women being more violent than men. So Sweden (which you brought up) being more violent than an African country, or any country have more female than male violence, would weight against the post's thesis. I don't think anyone expects that you can read a theory about Africa to explain European war, but Boko Haram have not just been guilty of opportunistic rapes, they actually conduct raids for the purposes of kidnapping hundreds of women. Boko Haram's fighters are mainly young single men in are in a polygynous society where women are in short supply. Surely you can see the incentive for men to steal women in such an environment, which would have been far more common previously.

Men are more robust and powerfully built than women and darker complexioned than women. Men are more promiscuous, and inclined to use the threat of violence it to get what they want (basically sex). For example a nightclub that is great place to hook up is often a great place to get into a fight. My reading is Africa and other historically female garden agriculture areas (where an extra wife is an asset rather than a drain on the husbands resources) are like a nightclub, there is more incentive for men to fight or intimidate there. The

The darkest people in Africa are in and around Senegal, which has the highest rates of polygyny and soils suitable for female farming systems. There is a similar system in Bougainville island WHICH ALSO HAS VERY DARK SKIN. Senegal has a rather good football team, and west African descended populations are well known for dominating power sports such as sprinting. If you have never read that the Senegal and Gambia locals are the most African of African types then you can't have read much on the subject.

I’m still having a hard time following you here, but that isn’t atypical for your posts. and I’m not alone. Nothing I said indicates anything about that with female violence. My point is that extremely high rates of interpersonal violence in the public/social sphere can easily exist without high rates of polygamy. A society where women are more violent than men is an extreme rarity in human history. And surely you can see where Boko Haram’s behavior isn’t very atypical and not exclusive to a high polygamous society given things like the Mongols or eurasian muslims.

The darkest people in Africa are found in South Sudan, not Senegal. Your map (which isn’t very exact) shows several other areas in Africa with equally dark skin, but it’s clear South Sudan is the darkest. How exactly is Bougainville so similar to Senegal given they had much less advanced agriculture and were a stone age island people? Africans dominate in certain sports, but not all. I have variously heard (and gotten the impression) they have greater lower body strength as opposed to upper. And no, I’m sorry that I haven’t come across the idea Senegambians are the most “African of African types”, even though I have read on the subject. Aside from skin color (which you are wrong about), how are they the most extreme type?

Southern Sudan (the Dinka ect) are highly polgynous and have special bride price marriage practices that have selected for accelerated growth (in girls). They may be as dark, but they are not any darker than West Africans. If I am wrong lets be having your ref for them being the darkest.

West Africa was where the Bantu expansion started from and people of that ancestry totally dominate sprinting, and certain related positions in American Football . They are beginning to dominate soccer in Europe, so it is rather silly to doubt they are more powerful than other people.

Scandinavians are the tallest people in the world, along with the environmental component to height,

If I say that polygyny has certain evolutionary consequences, I'm not saying that those consequences are caused only by polygyny. Yes, other selection pressures can cause an increase in body size.

whether measured in war time or not, people worldwide in the past were incredibly violent, including europeans and east asians.

If we're talking about personal violence (and not state-organized violence, i.e., war), they were not equally violent. High-polygyny societies seem to have experienced a higher level of personal male violence than low-polygyny societies.

SS africa is routinely ranked as having among the world’s highest murder rates, but is equaled or even surpassed by latin america

Surpassed? You're also referring to certain Latin American countries, not to Latin America in general.

You have remarked on their lighter skin color and lower rates of polygamy before

I'm not sure what you're referring to. I remember writing about southern Africans having a higher rate of albinism, but that's not the same thing as saying that southern Africans in general are lighter-skinned.

In the Yoruba case the farming concerned is also subsistence farming and not solely modern cash cropping. The sources I cited refer also to traditional agriculture such as yam cultivation, since they appear to be discussing traditional practices in general.

Yam cultivation is often reserved for men in many West African societies, but the bulk of food production is done by women.

Jm, (Jim?) I appreciate your lengthy comments, but you're starting to challenge not only my opinion but the opinion of almost any anthropologist, including Jack Goody and Ester Boserup, who has written on agriculture in West Africa. Male-dominated farming is the exception not the rule in West Africa. It is also a later development, as seen in the greater reliance on pastoralism and its increasing prevalence as one moves away from the coast and toward the savannah and Sahel.

Does it hold for the Igbo (of which so much as been made)? [With better minds and bodies, they'd be on the way to being the new master race.]

With regard to intelligence, we need more data (and not simply data on academic performance). The Igbo clearly do better than other Nigerians, but I've yet to find anything on IQ itself.

The Igbo tried to become the masters of Nigeria once (the military coup before the civil war), and that was a big mistake.

By contrast, the African way of fighting seemed to be a few charges, massacre and loot what one could, and then run away. Decisive battles continued to the enemy’s annihilation seemed not possible even with Shaka Zulu’s forces, they were not organized or disciplined to the extent required.

Yes, a high-polygyny society cannot easily develop into an advanced society with State formation. There is simply too much male-male rivalry. And the problem is not limited to warfare. This is part of the larger problem of building high-trust societies.

Even the above seems to indicate most of the women deriving the better part or at least a large proportion from their husbands, a far cry from woman as providing the majority and men as contributing little to nothing. The Yoruba are not the only “exception”. The Fon and Ewe of Dahomey/ Southern Ghana also have strongly male farming systems. In (many)West African cultures, as I said, both sexes contribute, but in some much is done by men(more so in the savannah).

If you're not sure what Ester Boserup meant, why not read the rest of her book? She states clearly that African women participate more than African men in farming:

Africa is the region of female farming par excellence. In many African tribes, nearly all the tasks connected with food production continue to be left to women. [...]

Of course, there are exceptions to this general rule. In some African communities with shifting cultivation, the women have some help from the men beyond the felling of trees. For instance, men may hoe the land or take part in the preparatory hoeing before the crops are planted, but even with such help the bulk of the work with the food crops is done by women. [...]

It appears that forty years ago female farming with no male help except for the felling of trees predominated in the whole of the Congo region, in large parts of South East and East Africa and in parts of West Africa. Female farming was far more widespread than systems of male farming and it also seems to have been more widespread than systems of predominantly female farming with some help from males in cultivation; this latter type of farming was characteristic of the region immediately south of the Sahara. (Boserup, 2007, pp. 4-5)

The joint result of women’s high rate of participation in agricultural work and their generally long working hours was that women, in nearly all the cases recorded, were found to do more than half of the agricultural work; in some cases they were found to do around 70 per cent and in one case nearly 80 per cent of the total. Thus the available quantitative information about work input by sex seems to indicate that even today village production in Africa south of the Sahara continues to be predominantly female farming. (Boserup, 2007, p. 10)

Hence, the real difference between the use of the African and Asian agricultural labour force, as revealed by a comparison of the two tables, is that Asian men -- the operators of the plough-- must work longer hours than African men, while many of the wives of Asian men are free from field work. (Boserup, 2007, p. 14)

[..] female family labour accounts for a much smaller part of the total agricultural work in the Asian than in the African village. In nearly all cases recorded in Table 1, the female African family members did more than half of the work in agriculture; the comparable figure for Asian cultivator families was less than one fifth [...] (Boserup, 2007, p. 14)

Boserup also states that "male farming" in Dahomey and Nigeria usually involves immigrant seasonal workers from the north (where men participate more in farming):

The table includes a few cases of 'male farming'. In the sample for Dahomey, and in the sample from Nigeria (which refers to a cocoa producing region inhabited by members of the Yoruba tribe), men's average working hours in agriculture were ten times longer than those of women. Nevertheless, average hours of work for men, at least in the case of Nigeria, were not much longer than is typical for African villages generally. This was possible because the absence of any considerable female contribution to agricultural work was compensated by the use of hired workers for more than 40 per cent of agricultural work. These were immigrant seasonal workers from the Northern Regions of Nigeria coming in to help with the cocoa crops, and whom the farmers could afford to use because cocoa production was highly profitable at the time (during the Korean boom) when the sample study was made. (Boserup, 2007, p. 11)

“If we’re talking about personal violence (and not state-organized violence, i.e., war), they were not equally violent. High-polygyny societies seem to have experienced a higher level of personal male violence than low-polygyny societies.”

What evidence do you have to back this up? The murder rates of European countries were dramatically higher in the past (which you have written on), comparable to african americans and other third and/or world countries. There is no reason to expect that a people who routinely engage in incredible atrocities in war shouldn’t extend this to the personal sphere. Do you think a people like the mongols, who routinely mobilized their entire male population into committing massacres and atrocities in war wouldn’t experience high personal violence? Mongolia today also has a fairly high murder rate.

This is the first time I have ever seen you claim high polygyny societies experience higher levels of personal male violence than vice versa. High levels of male violence are likely an inevitability with high polygyny societies, but low polygyny is not even remotely a guarantee for low violence.

“Surpassed? You’re also referring to certain Latin American countries, not to Latin America in general.”

Yes, I meant specific Latin American countries, sorry. And yes, some latin american countries do surpass sub-saharan african ones, I’m surprised you’d actually question this. Honduras and Colombia are good examples, and there’s the behavior of Mexican drug cartels. Honduras has for the past several years had a murder rate of close to 100/100k, and given how incredibly corrupt the police are, that’s very likely a considerable underestimate, which is the highest in the world. And it’s murder rates even before then were very high, usually in the 40′s to 50′s and often spiked even higher. Plenty of muslim countries like Pakistan (just look up Karachi’s crime), Afghanistan etc. would register incredibly high murder rates if properly documented, despite their much lower rates of polygamy. Nevermind what sort of terrorist groups and such middle eastern countries often produce.

“I’m not sure what you’re referring to. I remember writing about southern Africans having a higher rate of albinism, but that’s not the same thing as saying that southern Africans in general are lighter-skinned.”

I distinctively remember you writing on this, but I can’t recall the exact post. Southern african bantus are indeed lighter, and I recall you also claiming they have lower rates of polygyny (and was indicated in a map you’ve posted), but now you seem to be claiming this is only a phenomenon of the past 150 years.

"Yam cultivation is often reserved for men in many West African societies, but the bulk of food production is done by women."

Yams are an indigenous and ancient staple (predating cocoyams and long predating cassava and maize) as discussed by Guyer. Their ancient/traditional role among many west african tribes is significant. The igbo are not an exception in this way.

"Jm, (Jim?) I appreciate your lengthy comments, but you’re starting to challenge not only my opinion but the opinion of almost any anthropologist, including Jack Goody and Ester Boserup, who has written on agriculture in West Africa. Male-dominated farming is the exception not the rule in West Africa. It is also a later development, as seen in the greater reliance on pastoralism and its increasing prevalence as one moves away from the coast and toward the savannah and Sahel."
I would be surprised if many modern anthropologists significantly attributed male farming in the savannah to pastoralism, as the animal drawn plough was not typically used there and manuring was limited.
Hermann Baumann (ca. 1930's) believed the prevalence of cereal grains( over root crops). to be responsible, due to their longer storage potential. The greater prevalence of pastoralism in the savannah/sahel than the forest is usually attributed to the tsetse fly's effects on cattle.

“Yams are an indigenous and ancient staple (predating cocoyams and long predating cassava and maize) as discussed by Guyer. Their ancient/traditional role among many west african tribes is significant. The igbo are not an exception in this way.”

Do you have any other references for this, and anything specific in Guyer? I’ve had trouble finding information on the domestication of african food crops. It’s helpful in these discussions given how often people claim africans never developed agriculture, or atleast not indigenously.

"Do you have any other references for this, and anything specific in Guyer? I’ve had trouble finding information on the domestication of african food crops. It’s helpful in these discussions given how often people claim africans never developed agriculture, or atleast not indigenously."

''Surpassed? You’re also referring to certain Latin American countries, not to Latin America in general.''

And significant part of this violence is caused exactly by the presence of afro-descendents.

No, sorry, countries like Colombia, Mexico, Honduras etc. have minority or miniscule black populations. Native americans were plenty violent (and arguably among the most violent on record) in the case of the Aztecs, Sioux etc. and still are if you look at people like the Yanomamo, or even modern US native americans (who are heavily white, but still.) And through all of this, nearly all of the countries in question are overwhelmingly mestizo. Try again.

But they have largely female farming systems those Yanomamo. The physical characteristics may not have caught up with it, but their aggression is used to get women according to Chagnon, and where is your example of whites who are more violent.

Nilotic height and the Pygmy shortness has also been explained by anthropologists as selection resulting fro marriage practices by the way. Its another example of how within Africa there are under different pressures and eventually groups.

Nicaragua have 9% of blacks (don't into acount the afro-descendents, just by self-identification), USA have 12%.

Just Honduras that have little percent of blacks.

Is evident that blacks, on average, produce higher rates of crimes in quasi-every place where they ''are''. This should not be discussed because facts are not debatable.

This does not mean that there are no peaceful black populations, or populations of other ethnicities and races that are not violent.

But it seems necessary to repeat it, talking about very detailed way to avoid distorted interpretations. Even I do not believe that black physical phenotype is causal to the greater disposition to violent behavior. The greatest difference is the proportion of types who are more predisposed to violence.

Again, accuracy is important to communicate, but it would help a lot if people make further efforts to try to avoid distortions in time to interpret. :(

No, sorry, countries like Colombia, Mexico, Honduras etc. have minority or miniscule black populations. Native americans were plenty violent (and arguably among the most violent on record) in the case of the Aztecs, Sioux etc. and still are if you look at people like the Yanomamo, or even modern US native americans (who are heavily white, but still.) And through all of this, nearly all of the countries in question are overwhelmingly mestizo. Try again.

But they have largely female farming systems those Yanomamo. The physical characteristics may not have caught up with it, but their aggression is used to get women according to Chagnon, and where is your example of whites who are more violent.

Nilotic height and the Pygmy shortness has also been explained by anthropologists as selection resulting fro marriage practices by the way. Its another example of how within Africa there are under different pressures and eventually groups.

I have never once heard of the Yanomamo having female centered agriculture, or anything like what is seen in sub-saharan africa. It's not just the Yanomamo either, there are indigenous people throughout the Americas with extraordinarily high rates of violence. My example of whites is in pre-modern times. I've made that clear multiple times.

The explanation for the height difference between nilotes and pygmies has been advanced overwhelmingly by Peter, not anthropologists in general. The extremely short height of the pygmies (shorter than the khoisan and hadza) is thought of as mainly an extreme adaptation in rainforest climates, and is paralleled by other pygmy groups throughout the world. They also have extremely fast rates of physical maturation and are probably the fastest of all living humans.

I didn't deny that south sudan has a high rate of polygamy, but this is the first time I've heard of them selecting for accelerated growth in women. I'd say the pygmies are a better example of that. I don't have any specific references on how dark their skin is, but I think it's evident from looking at photos and comparing them to Senegambians that they are darker, though now you're claiming they're just as dark as west africans, when you were claiming the latter are the darkest. Let's see your references that Senegambians are the most "extreme" african type, which I should have come by according to you.

Yes, it's true they dominate in some sports, but not all. There's nothing silly about doubting they're so physically adept all around, but you have a reputation for trying to defend and corroborate anything Frost trots out, no matter where it takes you.

I'm still having a hard time following you here, but that isn't atypical for your posts. and I'm not alone. Nothing I said indicates anything about that with female violence. My point is that extremely high rates of interpersonal violence in the public/social sphere can easily exist without high rates of polygamy. A society where women are more violent than men is an extreme rarity in human history. And surely you can see where Boko Haram's behavior isn't very atypical and not exclusive to a high polygamous society given things like the Mongols or eurasian muslims.

The darkest people in Africa are found in South Sudan, not Senegal. Your map (which isn't very exact) shows several other areas in Africa with equally dark skin, but it's clear South Sudan is the darkest. How exactly is Bougainville so similar to Senegal given they had much less advanced agriculture and were a stone age island people? Africans dominate in certain sports, but not all. I have variously heard (and gotten the impression) they have greater lower body strength as opposed to upper. And no, I'm sorry that I haven't come across the idea Senegambians are the most "African of African types", even though I have read on the subject. Aside from skin color (which you are wrong about), how are they the most extreme type?

Southern Sudan (the Dinka ect) are highly polgynous and have special bride price marriage practices that have selected for accelerated growth (in girls). They may be as dark, but they are not any darker than West Africans. If I am wrong lets be having your ref for them being the darkest.

West Africa was where the Bantu expansion started from and people of that ancestry totally dominate sprinting, and certain related positions in American Football . They are beginning to dominate soccer in Europe, so it is rather silly to doubt they are more powerful than other people.

What I’m saying is that for population genetics, populations are the appropriate natural kind, not continents.

I thought the post was comparing two populations within Africa, and trying to show how black Africans (hoe farmers) became big and strong and aggressive by contrast with hunter gatherers. A novel set of selection pressures producing changes to a hunter gatherer population what I thought the post was about

As I think was clear, I was responding to a particular comment by Peter Frost:

I believe they [Africans] are physically more robust, with denser bones and a stronger musculature. That isn’t a personal opinion. It’s just the way things are.

But they have largely female farming systems those Yanomamo. The physical characteristics may not have caught up with it, but their aggression is used to get women according to Chagnon, and where is your example of whites who are more violent.

Nilotic height and the Pygmy shortness has also been explained by anthropologists as selection resulting fro marriage practices by the way. Its another example of how within Africa there are under different pressures and eventually groups.

I have never once heard of the Yanomamo having female centered agriculture, or anything like what is seen in sub-saharan africa. It’s not just the Yanomamo either, there are indigenous people throughout the Americas with extraordinarily high rates of violence. My example of whites is in pre-modern times. I’ve made that clear multiple times.

The explanation for the height difference between nilotes and pygmies has been advanced overwhelmingly by Peter, not anthropologists in general. The extremely short height of the pygmies (shorter than the khoisan and hadza) is thought of as mainly an extreme adaptation in rainforest climates, and is paralleled by other pygmy groups throughout the world. They also have extremely fast rates of physical maturation and are probably the fastest of all living humans.

I didn’t deny that south sudan has a high rate of polygamy, but this is the first time I’ve heard of them selecting for accelerated growth in women. I’d say the pygmies are a better example of that. I don’t have any specific references on how dark their skin is, but I think it’s evident from looking at photos and comparing them to Senegambians that they are darker, though now you’re claiming they’re just as dark as west africans, when you were claiming the latter are the darkest. Let’s see your references that Senegambians are the most “extreme” african type, which I should have come by according to you.

Yes, it’s true they dominate in some sports, but not all. There’s nothing silly about doubting they’re so physically adept all around, but you have a reputation for trying to defend and corroborate anything Frost trots out, no matter where it takes you.

You keep saying that you have not read things that are there on the Wikis so could you do a little work before raising that objection again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanomami#Organization. The Yanomami can be classified as foraging horticulturalists, depending heavily on rainforest resources; they use slash-and-burn horticulture, grow bananas, gather fruit, and hunt animals and fish. [...] Polygamous families consist of a large patrifocal family unit based on one man, and smaller matrifocal subfamilies: each woman's family unit, composed of the woman and her children

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/06/10/the-yanomamo-and-the-origins-of-male-honor/Chagnon argues that the Yanomamö were driven by a biological desire to pass on their genes just as other animals were, and that their conflicts were almost entirely rooted in reproductive competition. “The tokens of wealth that we civilized people covet are largely irrelevant to success and survival in the tribal world and were irrelevant during most of human history,” “But women have always been the most valuable single resource that men fight for and defend.”Yanomamö man hoped to have multiple wives.[...] Chagnon found that 20% of the women in the villages he studied had been abducted from other villages. [...] “Let me emphasize the Yanomamö view that when members of a group acquire a reputation of timidity and cowardice, their neighbors take ruthless advantage of them, push them around, insult them publicly, and take their women. Thus it is strategically important to react decisively to any affront, no matter how trivial. If a group is small, the men try to make up for their numerical disadvantage by acting as if the group is bigger, nastier, more ferocious, and ready to fight on a moment’s notice. ”

http://the10000yearexplosion.com/human-cultural-diversity/Among mobile foragers there is a pattern that the closer to equator a group is the higher the proportion of its subsistence is derived from vegetable foods. Northern and extreme southern groups have more meat in their diet than do mid-latitude groups where more vegetables are consumed. A solid generalization about foragers is that women don’t hunt and that they do most of the gathering, so women contribute more of a group’s food in warmer latitudes. In these regions, particularly in humid forested areas, there is a very thin line between foraging and gardening: one can stick a gathered root in the ground, forget it as it propagates, and harvest it months later. While archaeologists generally think of the “origin of agriculture” as corresponding to what is visible in the fertile crescent and elsewhere as ruins of sedentary villages heavily dependent on grains grown in fields, there is a whole separate tropical route to farming via gradual intensification of gathering. This route has been essentially invisible to archaeologists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_expansion It is thought that Central African Pygmies and Bantus branched out from a common ancestral population c. 70,000 years ago.[17]

The Pygmies stop growing at a early age and the early cecesion means they can reproduce faster for given resources in their environment. The Nilotic brideprice paid in cattle was meant there was selection for accelerated growth; once girls were a certain size they would be sought after and could be sold off at a young age. Those are not my ideas or the post authors, they are recent theories published by separately anthropologists. Peter is not the first person to propose such a theory, Darwin thought the differences in appearance around the world were due to sexual selection.

The alternative is to explain things like beards and long straight hair as inexplicable . As for dark skin we are in agreement that highly polygynous people are very dark indeed wherever they live in Africa. The similarity between sub Saharan Africans and people from Bougainville Island seem quite likely to derive from selection in a female garden agriculture system with associated polygyny.

See how silly this idea that short people are short to burrow through undergrowth is? Note that Lapps are short. Nilotics are not tall to stay cool. The Pygmies, Bantu and Nilotic physiques are related to what selection pressures they were under, and the terms of reproduction imposed by marriage practices and resources is the key to understanding each's special characteristics The non- polygynous Pygmies are small, weak and much lighter in skin colour than the highly polygyous Bantu and Nilotics. Sprinting is the power sport, and people of mainly West African ancestry totally dominate sprinting. Basketball is for large fast men who can jump and blacks dominate that, and dominate the running positions of American Football even more . The Williams sisters domination of tennis is not caused by their "adeptness" it is mainly a function of their size and power. The post is talking about size and power and pro sports confirm blacks are larger and more powerful, just as people with inside knowledge (like Teddy Sheringham) have said. http://new.spectator.co.uk/2003/02/black-is-best/

No, sorry, countries like Colombia, Mexico, Honduras etc. have minority or miniscule black populations. Native americans were plenty violent (and arguably among the most violent on record) in the case of the Aztecs, Sioux etc. and still are if you look at people like the Yanomamo, or even modern US native americans (who are heavily white, but still.) And through all of this, nearly all of the countries in question are overwhelmingly mestizo. Try again.

Its is not a refutation, baby! And don’t prove that my point is wrong because I use the term SIGNIFICANT. It’s not “almost” nor “most”.

Honduras and Nicaragua aren’t birracial amerindian-Spaniards, specially Guatemala and Mexico in north central America which are like that.

If I had said ” almost part of crimes in Latin America is caused by afro-descendents” your “refutation” make sense but not.

I know you didn't say "almost" or "most", but given how small in number they are compared to the mestizo population, there is little reason to talk about them as being a significant factor in the crime in those countries, even if they are likely disproportionate for their numbers (but would most likely be outclassed by mestizos in these countries if they had similar population percentages.) So your comment was pointless.

I don't know exactly how mixed the peoples of the countries I mentioned are (aside from Mexico), but whether they're mestizo or amerind isn't really relevant to this discussion, which is about polygyny and violence, and amerinds aren't known for having high polygyny.

By the way, Peter, here is an example of what I meant about your writings touching upon lower polygyny in Southern Africa: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ebs/2/4/169.pdf&productCode=pa

"The frequency is somewhat lower in East and South Africa, although 15 to 30 percent of
husbands are reported to be polygynists in Kenya and Tanzania. "

The map on page 174 showers lower polygyny in southern africa, but there's less groups documented. I recall you touching on this more explicitly before, but not the exact posts/articles. It's also worth noting for Sean that nowhere else on Earth, not in the tropical Americas or in papua new guinea/melanesia, is polygyny as high as it often is in SS africa. The most polygamist group in South America is one somewhere in Northern Venezuela/Colombia, but still less than most SS africans.

No, sorry, countries like Colombia, Mexico, Honduras etc. have minority or miniscule black populations. Native americans were plenty violent (and arguably among the most violent on record) in the case of the Aztecs, Sioux etc. and still are if you look at people like the Yanomamo, or even modern US native americans (who are heavily white, but still.) And through all of this, nearly all of the countries in question are overwhelmingly mestizo. Try again.

Nicaragua have 9% of blacks (don’t into acount the afro-descendents, just by self-identification), USA have 12%.

Just Honduras that have little percent of blacks.

Is evident that blacks, on average, produce higher rates of crimes in quasi-every place where they ”are”. This should not be discussed because facts are not debatable.

This does not mean that there are no peaceful black populations, or populations of other ethnicities and races that are not violent.

But it seems necessary to repeat it, talking about very detailed way to avoid distorted interpretations. Even I do not believe that black physical phenotype is causal to the greater disposition to violent behavior. The greatest difference is the proportion of types who are more predisposed to violence.

Again, accuracy is important to communicate, but it would help a lot if people make further efforts to try to avoid distortions in time to interpret.

Its is not a refutation, baby! And don't prove that my point is wrong because I use the term SIGNIFICANT. It's not "almost" nor "most".

Honduras and Nicaragua aren't birracial amerindian-Spaniards, specially Guatemala and Mexico in north central America which are like that.

If I had said " almost part of crimes in Latin America is caused by afro-descendents" your "refutation" make sense but not.

I'm try, ;)

I know you didn’t say “almost” or “most”, but given how small in number they are compared to the mestizo population, there is little reason to talk about them as being a significant factor in the crime in those countries, even if they are likely disproportionate for their numbers (but would most likely be outclassed by mestizos in these countries if they had similar population percentages.) So your comment was pointless.

I don’t know exactly how mixed the peoples of the countries I mentioned are (aside from Mexico), but whether they’re mestizo or amerind isn’t really relevant to this discussion, which is about polygyny and violence, and amerinds aren’t known for having high polygyny.

“The frequency is somewhat lower in East and South Africa, although 15 to 30 percent of
husbands are reported to be polygynists in Kenya and Tanzania. ”

The map on page 174 showers lower polygyny in southern africa, but there’s less groups documented. I recall you touching on this more explicitly before, but not the exact posts/articles. It’s also worth noting for Sean that nowhere else on Earth, not in the tropical Americas or in papua new guinea/melanesia, is polygyny as high as it often is in SS africa. The most polygamist group in South America is one somewhere in Northern Venezuela/Colombia, but still less than most SS africans.

Nope, my comment wasn't pointless. Just see again the scope of this micro context to try understand why your triumphalism was excessive. Someone use Latin America as example to prove that criminality "is not just a " black thing. I refute showing that is not totally true ... if just Brazil where at least 20% of Latin American people live have greater % of afro descendents and greater proportion of them in the crime rates.

I know you didn't say "almost" or "most", but given how small in number they are compared to the mestizo population, there is little reason to talk about them as being a significant factor in the crime in those countries, even if they are likely disproportionate for their numbers (but would most likely be outclassed by mestizos in these countries if they had similar population percentages.) So your comment was pointless.

I don't know exactly how mixed the peoples of the countries I mentioned are (aside from Mexico), but whether they're mestizo or amerind isn't really relevant to this discussion, which is about polygyny and violence, and amerinds aren't known for having high polygyny.

By the way, Peter, here is an example of what I meant about your writings touching upon lower polygyny in Southern Africa: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ebs/2/4/169.pdf&productCode=pa

"The frequency is somewhat lower in East and South Africa, although 15 to 30 percent of
husbands are reported to be polygynists in Kenya and Tanzania. "

The map on page 174 showers lower polygyny in southern africa, but there's less groups documented. I recall you touching on this more explicitly before, but not the exact posts/articles. It's also worth noting for Sean that nowhere else on Earth, not in the tropical Americas or in papua new guinea/melanesia, is polygyny as high as it often is in SS africa. The most polygamist group in South America is one somewhere in Northern Venezuela/Colombia, but still less than most SS africans.

Nope, my comment wasn’t pointless. Just see again the scope of this micro context to try understand why your triumphalism was excessive. Someone use Latin America as example to prove that criminality “is not just a ” black thing. I refute showing that is not totally true … if just Brazil where at least 20% of Latin American people live have greater % of afro descendents and greater proportion of them in the crime rates.

At least in Brazil, blacks have higher overrepresentation in crimes than ''mestizos''. Mexico become very dangerous recently and caused by organized crime is not** It STILL doesn't mean that i'm saying that ''mestizos'' on average are unable to ''surpass'' ''blacks'' (overdosis of '' '') in crime rates.

"Yams are an indigenous and ancient staple (predating cocoyams and long predating cassava and maize) as discussed by Guyer. Their ancient/traditional role among many west african tribes is significant. The igbo are not an exception in this way."

Do you have any other references for this, and anything specific in Guyer? I've had trouble finding information on the domestication of african food crops. It's helpful in these discussions given how often people claim africans never developed agriculture, or atleast not indigenously.

“Do you have any other references for this, and anything specific in Guyer? I’ve had trouble finding information on the domestication of african food crops. It’s helpful in these discussions given how often people claim africans never developed agriculture, or atleast not indigenously.”

"Do you have any other references for this, and anything specific in Guyer? I’ve had trouble finding information on the domestication of african food crops. It’s helpful in these discussions given how often people claim africans never developed agriculture, or atleast not indigenously."

And significant part of this violence is caused exactly by the presence of afro-descendents.

I take this to mean that negroes in Latin America have (far?) greater violent-crime rates than mestizos in the same country. What are the relative rates?

At least in Brazil, blacks have higher overrepresentation in crimes than ”mestizos”. Mexico become very dangerous recently and caused by organized crime is not** It STILL doesn’t mean that i’m saying that ”mestizos” on average are unable to ”surpass” ”blacks” (overdosis of ” ”) in crime rates.

I think savage capitalism + typical third world problems may be viewed as aggravating in SOME cases ( and more possible dysgenic selective pressures) but look more complicated explain why afro-americans continue to be overrepresented in american or european crime scene (and equally initially poor people as chinese or lower comparative levels as hispanics).

Europeans and east asians evolved simultaneously with its respective civilizations. Blacks, amerindians and other groups, were simply thrown into this ”civilized context”. It explain partially i think why this reminiscent hunter gatherers derived groups are not adapted for ”long term gratification” lifestyle of human civilizations.

I would be surprised if many modern anthropologists significantly attributed male farming in the savannah to pastoralism, as the animal drawn plough was not typically used there and manuring was limited.

Point well taken. If I could rewrite this column, I would replace the following sentence:

Goody also notes that polygyny rates have remained high in the Sahel, where pastoralism has nonetheless increased male participation in farming.

with

Goody also notes that women are much less self-reliant in the northern savannah of West Africa:

“In savannah regions where water is scarce and trees scattered, their collection may make great demands on a woman’s time. So too does the grinding of hard grain, in the absence of mills. In all these domestic pursuits the savannah is more demanding on a woman’s time than the forest and consequently she can often make less contribution to agriculture. (Goody, 1973)

Yet polygyny rates have remained high. Goody gives the example of Ghana …

A society where women are more violent than men is an extreme rarity in human history.

I agree, but the sex difference in personal violence varies considerably. It’s much greater in high-polygyny societies than in low-polygyny societies. I’m talking here about personal violence and not state-organized violence.

The murder rates of European countries were dramatically higher in the past (which you have written on), comparable to african americans and other third and/or world countries.

Yes, homicide rates were much higher in late medieval England: 20 to 40 per year per 100,000. But that rate is still lower than what we see in high-polygyny societies, such as the Gebusi, Goilala, Hew, and Agta of New Guinea, where it’s about 660 to 690 per 100,000.

African Americans do not live in an environment of intense male-male rivalry for women (largely because so many young men are incarcerated). They also live in a society with modern policing and religious constraints on aggressive behavior (churches and church-sponsored youth groups). If all of these factors were absent, their homicide rate would be much higher.

low polygyny is not even remotely a guarantee for low violence.

It’s a “guarantee” for lower rates of personal violence. I’m not trying to create a unified theory of everything. Human societies are multidimensional and I recognize that other factors are involved.

And yes, some latin american countries do surpass sub-saharan african ones,

The surge of violence in certain Latin American countries (in Central America) is recent and related to the drug trade:

In the last five years, homicide rates have increased in five out of eight countries in Central America, with some countries seeing their rate more than double in the same period. These trends are largely attributable to fluctuations in cocaine trafficking in Central America, which can lead to criminal conflicts as a result of both increases and decreases in drug flows, with the latter particularly resulting in increased competition between drug trafficking groups.

Homicide in Africa has a very different profile. It’s more related to sexual jealousy and personal conflict. Women in particular are more often victims than is the case in Central America:

Data also indicate that Africa is the region with the highest female homicide rate, showing that where high homicide rates are not driven to the same extent by organized crime, street crime, nonspecific lethal violence and/or intimate partner family-related homicide all play an important role and women evidently fall victim to all three.

The homicide situation in Venezuela and Brazil is qualitatively different from that of Central America. It’s less a matter of organized gangs and is more likely to involve solitary men or small groups of men.

in 18th and 19th century rural China, women took two (or sometimes more) husbands. This happened in every province in China, and for the most part, their communities tolerated or even accepted it.

The little-known prevalence of polyandry comes to light in Matthew Sommer’s fascinating history of peasant family structures, Polyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China. Since most peasants were illiterate and the Qing elite regarded polyandry as supremely immoral, there are few traces of the practice. Sommer, a Stanford University historian, draws descriptions from court cases.

Take, for example, the story of a farmer named Zheng Guoshun and his wife, Jiang Shi, in the southern province of Fujian in the mid-1700s. When Zheng suddenly went blind, his wife recruited a younger man named Jiang Yilang (no relation) to move in with the couple and help out on the farm, in exchange for sex. For nearly three decades, relations among the trio seemed to have gone smoothly, and Jiang Shi bore two daughters. When Zheng died of natural causes, 28 years after the arrangement began, Jiang Shi and Jiang Yilang continued their relationship.

Though the Zheng-Jiang-Jiang union did happen to be the longest-term polyandrous relationship Sommer found, the story is hardly unusual. Some polyandrous relationships combusted after a few months (often ending in a crime that landed them in the legal record). But many endured for years or even decades.

So why take two husbands? Contrary to modern-day associations with polyamory, the purpose was to protect the family.

Given how hard it was for peasants to survive, this was no easy feat to pull off. Between 1700 and 1850, the Middle Kingdom’s population tripled in size. Cultivated farmland, however, only doubled—encouraging people to simply work the land even harder. That left more people depending on less productive land for food. Mass famine was common.

Meanwhile, thanks to female infanticide and the Chinese elite’s concubine habit, among other things, the Middle Kingdom was amidst a “marriage crunch,” as demographic historian Ted Telford put it. The scarcity of demand meant rural men had to pay a heavy bride price—steeper than most could afford. The value of women’s sexual attention, companionship, and child-bearing capacity rose too.

When disaster struck—be it flooding or crop failure, or the personal calamity of injury or illness—two-worker families often earned too little to eat. Some families opted to sell of their children or allow a wealthier man buy the wife.

Instead of having to hock her kid or put the wife on the market, a family could find a second husband to bring in extra income and let families pool resources more efficiently. The primary couple gained economic security from this arrangement, while second husbands got a family and, often, the chance for offspring to care for them in their old age.

Many of these relationships were formalized according to local marriage custom. Some signed a contract, even though it was inadmissible in the Qing court. The two husbands commonly swore an oath of brotherhood (possibly in a bid to protect the first husband’s ego).

Mexico have just 400 thousand afro-descendents.
I think is important too analyse intra-group-proportion of individuals envolved in crime rates and not just its extrapolation out of group as happen with this kind of analysis, race-crime rates.

You can have a higher proportion of crime rates caused by organized criminal group but with a general or average pacific population.

I’ve long found the usage of homicide rates for very small, tribal populations incredibly misleading in this manner. You cannot extrapolate the significance of murders and war in small tribal bands/villages (and war is where most deaths in them occur) to larger, more settled populations, much less modern ones. A murder rate of 660-690 per 100,000 in modern society would be one in which there would be basically a state of complete, unrelenting warfare, but I’ve seen little indication settled, more modern peoples in Papua New Guinea are quite this bad. Even Port Moresby isn’t on that level.

“The homicide rate of the Aka is very low for a foraging people (approximately .003%) though still higher than the United States (approximately .00005% in 2008). There has never been a report of an Aka woman dying from male violence (Hewlett et al. 1986).”

This is a bit hard to parse to actual homicide rates per 100k, but .003% is many times larger than .00005%, and the US murder rate is typically around 5/100k, so I’d imagine the Aka homicide rate, taken as a literal value, is many times higher. It also seems unlikely that the record of no women dying due to male violence would persist if they became more settled, among other behaviors they exhibit, like the extreme gender equality. What it comes down to is you cannot so readily compare small tribal populations to modern, settled people.

I’m aware that incarceration has lowered the african-american murder rate, and I’ve also heard it argued that if all murders were solved, their rate would rise (but I imagine it would for whites too), but the rest your claims are kind of extreme. The link between modern policing and crime is very debatable, nevermind how corrupt the modern US police system is. It would be helpful if you could properly compare murder rates in african countries and parse them from deaths due to worse access to modern medical care.

And churches and church-sponsored youth groups? Really?

“It’s a “guarantee” for lower rates of personal violence. I’m not trying to create a unified theory of everything. Human societies are multidimensional and I recognize that other factors are involved.”

No, it isn’t. Recorded murder rates in the public sphere going back farther in history are very difficult to come by, but we have no shortage of evidence of incredible barbarism and atrocities in war from every corner of the globe in more distant times. Most deaths in modern tribal populations occur in war, but you don’t atrocities against civilians, POW’s etc. on the part of pre-modern societies can be particularly indicative of their propensity to violence in the social and public spheres. If we want to talk about pre-modern tribal peoples and what the historical record tells us, we can look at any number of native american peoples or the mongols and the huns as some prime examples that I’ve mentioned before. I never accused you of trying to create a unified theory of everything, but you are boiling far too much down to differences in polygyny vs. monogamy.

I’ve seen people often claim the drug trade is heavily responsible for crime in african-american communities, and they of course overlook things like how their crime rate isn’t unique compared to african populations throughout the world. On the other hand, you are allowing the drug trade as being the reason for the incredible homicides in latin america. I don’t deny that this is why there has been a recent spike, but homicide rates were very high even before this spike, and you have to consider how many murders and other crimes go unreported.

I don’t think it’s as different of a profile as you imply. The presence of organized crime, and especially on the scale as seen in latin america, in essence allows violent men and sociopathic/psychopathic impulses to be channeled into different realms and enterprises. If the drug trade disappeared, the large pool of violent, sociopathic men that composes them wouldn’t disappear. Crime and violence would by and large just become less “organized.” And what we see from cartels isn’t pretty- mass murders and executions, sadistic torture, indiscriminate killings and shock tactics like dumping mutilated, tortured masses of bodies out in public. It’s the kind of stuff you see in actual war zones, usually in Africa or the middle east. And I mentioned indiscriminate killings- here’s what we see in Honduras against women: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2181118/Female-murder-rate-skyrockets-Honduras-dozens-women-killed-month.html

Just about any quote would be relevant, especially to your claim that homicide in africa is a “very different profile”, but here’s some particularly choice ones:

“it is believed many of the women are killed because of vengeance attacks against family members as well as many being targeted and raped in their own homes.”

“Sunday’s report noted that ‘more than 90 percent of the cases have never been investigated’.

Last year, a report by Oxfam Honduras and a Honduran NGO, the Tribunal of Women Against Femicide, said that women were dying because of a deadly mixture of gun crime, political instability and the ‘systematic indifference’ of the police.

It is thought convictions for the crimes are rare and the report stated that between 2008 and 2010 there were 1,100 reported cases of femicide.

However, only 211 of those made it to court with a further 4.2 per cent of these resulting in a conviction.”

Venezuela and Brazil might lack the elaborate, organized crime places like Honduras have, but violent usually isn’t much better. In Venezuela, which is overwhelmingly mestizo, unlike heavily black/mulatto Brazil, we find this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Venezuela

“Crime in Venezuela is a pervasive issue. Venezuela was ranked the most insecure nation in the world by Gallup in 2013 with the United Nations stating that such crime is due to the poor political and economic environment in the country.[1][2] The country’s murder rate is also one of the highest in the world.[3][4][5] In 2008, polls indicated that crime was the number one concern of voters.[6] According to Venezuela’s Prosecutor General’s Office, 98% of crimes in Venezuela do not result in prosecution.[7]”

Santoculto:

“You can have a higher proportion of crime rates caused by organized criminal group but with a general or average pacific population.”

I agree, sociopathy/propensity to violence can be concentrated in different segments of the population depending on where you look. The hispanic murder rate in the US is something like half (or less) that of african-americans, and there are many towns and cities in the US with large or predominantly hispanic populations with low or average homicide rates. I imagine it would be even lower if you excluded illegal immigrants, or considered solely mexican-americans. On the other hand, the worst segments of Mexican society I would say are much worse than what you often see in african-americans.

"the worst segments of Mexican society .. are much worse than what you often see in african-americans" - Obviously if you are going to compare Mexican violence to African-American violence you need to compare average to average or the worst of one to the worst of the other not the worst of Mexicans to average African-Americans.

Rates of well above 40/100k have been reported throughout Europe in the past, and we also have to consider how incomplete records were back then. Oxford in one year had a murder rate of over 100/100k in one year in the 1300's: https://soci.ucalgary.ca/brannigan/sites/soci.ucalgary.ca.brannigan/files/long-term-historical-trends-of-violent-crime.pdf (page 85)

I've long found the usage of homicide rates for very small, tribal populations incredibly misleading in this manner. You cannot extrapolate the significance of murders and war in small tribal bands/villages (and war is where most deaths in them occur) to larger, more settled populations, much less modern ones. A murder rate of 660-690 per 100,000 in modern society would be one in which there would be basically a state of complete, unrelenting warfare, but I've seen little indication settled, more modern peoples in Papua New Guinea are quite this bad. Even Port Moresby isn't on that level.

Consider also the Aka pygmies: http://www.cep.ucsb.edu/grads/Sell/AkaSite.html

"The homicide rate of the Aka is very low for a foraging people (approximately .003%) though still higher than the United States (approximately .00005% in 2008). There has never been a report of an Aka woman dying from male violence (Hewlett et al. 1986)."

This is a bit hard to parse to actual homicide rates per 100k, but .003% is many times larger than .00005%, and the US murder rate is typically around 5/100k, so I'd imagine the Aka homicide rate, taken as a literal value, is many times higher. It also seems unlikely that the record of no women dying due to male violence would persist if they became more settled, among other behaviors they exhibit, like the extreme gender equality. What it comes down to is you cannot so readily compare small tribal populations to modern, settled people.

I'm aware that incarceration has lowered the african-american murder rate, and I've also heard it argued that if all murders were solved, their rate would rise (but I imagine it would for whites too), but the rest your claims are kind of extreme. The link between modern policing and crime is very debatable, nevermind how corrupt the modern US police system is. It would be helpful if you could properly compare murder rates in african countries and parse them from deaths due to worse access to modern medical care.

And churches and church-sponsored youth groups? Really?

"It’s a “guarantee” for lower rates of personal violence. I’m not trying to create a unified theory of everything. Human societies are multidimensional and I recognize that other factors are involved."

No, it isn't. Recorded murder rates in the public sphere going back farther in history are very difficult to come by, but we have no shortage of evidence of incredible barbarism and atrocities in war from every corner of the globe in more distant times. Most deaths in modern tribal populations occur in war, but you don't atrocities against civilians, POW's etc. on the part of pre-modern societies can be particularly indicative of their propensity to violence in the social and public spheres. If we want to talk about pre-modern tribal peoples and what the historical record tells us, we can look at any number of native american peoples or the mongols and the huns as some prime examples that I've mentioned before. I never accused you of trying to create a unified theory of everything, but you are boiling far too much down to differences in polygyny vs. monogamy.

I've seen people often claim the drug trade is heavily responsible for crime in african-american communities, and they of course overlook things like how their crime rate isn't unique compared to african populations throughout the world. On the other hand, you are allowing the drug trade as being the reason for the incredible homicides in latin america. I don't deny that this is why there has been a recent spike, but homicide rates were very high even before this spike, and you have to consider how many murders and other crimes go unreported.

I don't think it's as different of a profile as you imply. The presence of organized crime, and especially on the scale as seen in latin america, in essence allows violent men and sociopathic/psychopathic impulses to be channeled into different realms and enterprises. If the drug trade disappeared, the large pool of violent, sociopathic men that composes them wouldn't disappear. Crime and violence would by and large just become less "organized." And what we see from cartels isn't pretty- mass murders and executions, sadistic torture, indiscriminate killings and shock tactics like dumping mutilated, tortured masses of bodies out in public. It's the kind of stuff you see in actual war zones, usually in Africa or the middle east. And I mentioned indiscriminate killings- here's what we see in Honduras against women: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2181118/Female-murder-rate-skyrockets-Honduras-dozens-women-killed-month.html

Just about any quote would be relevant, especially to your claim that homicide in africa is a "very different profile", but here's some particularly choice ones:

"it is believed many of the women are killed because of vengeance attacks against family members as well as many being targeted and raped in their own homes."

"Sunday's report noted that 'more than 90 percent of the cases have never been investigated'.

Last year, a report by Oxfam Honduras and a Honduran NGO, the Tribunal of Women Against Femicide, said that women were dying because of a deadly mixture of gun crime, political instability and the 'systematic indifference' of the police.

It is thought convictions for the crimes are rare and the report stated that between 2008 and 2010 there were 1,100 reported cases of femicide.

However, only 211 of those made it to court with a further 4.2 per cent of these resulting in a conviction."

Venezuela and Brazil might lack the elaborate, organized crime places like Honduras have, but violent usually isn't much better. In Venezuela, which is overwhelmingly mestizo, unlike heavily black/mulatto Brazil, we find this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Venezuela

"Crime in Venezuela is a pervasive issue. Venezuela was ranked the most insecure nation in the world by Gallup in 2013 with the United Nations stating that such crime is due to the poor political and economic environment in the country.[1][2] The country's murder rate is also one of the highest in the world.[3][4][5] In 2008, polls indicated that crime was the number one concern of voters.[6] According to Venezuela's Prosecutor General’s Office, 98% of crimes in Venezuela do not result in prosecution.[7]"

Santoculto:

"You can have a higher proportion of crime rates caused by organized criminal group but with a general or average pacific population."

I agree, sociopathy/propensity to violence can be concentrated in different segments of the population depending on where you look. The hispanic murder rate in the US is something like half (or less) that of african-americans, and there are many towns and cities in the US with large or predominantly hispanic populations with low or average homicide rates. I imagine it would be even lower if you excluded illegal immigrants, or considered solely mexican-americans. On the other hand, the worst segments of Mexican society I would say are much worse than what you often see in african-americans.

Unique Environmental factors are basically CULTURAL Environmental factors. Unique= human. I think this macro unique Environmental factors tend to have greater impact in human societies. Non predicted events seems common among human societies as you have a organized crime in Mexico now.

I think savage capitalism + typical third world problems may be viewed as aggravating in SOME cases ( and more possible dysgenic selective pressures) but look more complicated explain why afro-americans continue to be overrepresented in american or european crime scene (and equally initially poor people as chinese or lower comparative levels as hispanics).

Europeans and east asians evolved simultaneously with its respective civilizations. Blacks, amerindians and other groups, were simply thrown into this ''civilized context''. It explain partially i think why this reminiscent hunter gatherers derived groups are not adapted for ''long term gratification'' lifestyle of human civilizations.

The Meso-American and Andean Indians had long passed the hunter-gatherer stage. Just sayin’.

And how to explain the historically low crime rates in mestizo countries like Chile and Costa Rica?

And?? I *think* I remember to use the name " pre civilized". But meso and Andean WERE "civilized". 500 years separating this populations today than in the pre Colombians. Farmers and other "lower class" who seems proliferate since Spanish invasion&colonization. Similar with the end of creta civilization, if I don't commit any mistake. Pre Colombian civilizations, also, seems wasn't like Belgium today where 95% of population live in urban regions.

The Meso-American and Andean Indians had long passed the hunter-gatherer stage. Just sayin'.

And how to explain the historically low crime rates in mestizo countries like Chile and Costa Rica?

And?? I *think* I remember to use the name ” pre civilized”. But meso and Andean WERE “civilized”. 500 years separating this populations today than in the pre Colombians. Farmers and other “lower class” who seems proliferate since Spanish invasion&colonization. Similar with the end of creta civilization, if I don’t commit any mistake. Pre Colombian civilizations, also, seems wasn’t like Belgium today where 95% of population live in urban regions.

I have never once heard of the Yanomamo having female centered agriculture, or anything like what is seen in sub-saharan africa. It's not just the Yanomamo either, there are indigenous people throughout the Americas with extraordinarily high rates of violence. My example of whites is in pre-modern times. I've made that clear multiple times.

The explanation for the height difference between nilotes and pygmies has been advanced overwhelmingly by Peter, not anthropologists in general. The extremely short height of the pygmies (shorter than the khoisan and hadza) is thought of as mainly an extreme adaptation in rainforest climates, and is paralleled by other pygmy groups throughout the world. They also have extremely fast rates of physical maturation and are probably the fastest of all living humans.

I didn't deny that south sudan has a high rate of polygamy, but this is the first time I've heard of them selecting for accelerated growth in women. I'd say the pygmies are a better example of that. I don't have any specific references on how dark their skin is, but I think it's evident from looking at photos and comparing them to Senegambians that they are darker, though now you're claiming they're just as dark as west africans, when you were claiming the latter are the darkest. Let's see your references that Senegambians are the most "extreme" african type, which I should have come by according to you.

Yes, it's true they dominate in some sports, but not all. There's nothing silly about doubting they're so physically adept all around, but you have a reputation for trying to defend and corroborate anything Frost trots out, no matter where it takes you.

You keep saying that you have not read things that are there on the Wikis so could you do a little work before raising that objection again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanomami#Organization. The Yanomami can be classified as foraging horticulturalists, depending heavily on rainforest resources; they use slash-and-burn horticulture, grow bananas, gather fruit, and hunt animals and fish. [...] Polygamous families consist of a large patrifocal family unit based on one man, and smaller matrifocal subfamilies: each woman’s family unit, composed of the woman and her children

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/06/10/the-yanomamo-and-the-origins-of-male-honor/
Chagnon argues that the Yanomamö were driven by a biological desire to pass on their genes just as other animals were, and that their conflicts were almost entirely rooted in reproductive competition. “The tokens of wealth that we civilized people covet are largely irrelevant to success and survival in the tribal world and were irrelevant during most of human history,” “But women have always been the most valuable single resource that men fight for and defend.”Yanomamö man hoped to have multiple wives.[...] Chagnon found that 20% of the women in the villages he studied had been abducted from other villages. [...] “Let me emphasize the Yanomamö view that when members of a group acquire a reputation of timidity and cowardice, their neighbors take ruthless advantage of them, push them around, insult them publicly, and take their women. Thus it is strategically important to react decisively to any affront, no matter how trivial. If a group is small, the men try to make up for their numerical disadvantage by acting as if the group is bigger, nastier, more ferocious, and ready to fight on a moment’s notice. ”

http://the10000yearexplosion.com/human-cultural-diversity/
Among mobile foragers there is a pattern that the closer to equator a group is the higher the proportion of its subsistence is derived from vegetable foods. Northern and extreme southern groups have more meat in their diet than do mid-latitude groups where more vegetables are consumed. A solid generalization about foragers is that women don’t hunt and that they do most of the gathering, so women contribute more of a group’s food in warmer latitudes. In these regions, particularly in humid forested areas, there is a very thin line between foraging and gardening: one can stick a gathered root in the ground, forget it as it propagates, and harvest it months later. While archaeologists generally think of the “origin of agriculture” as corresponding to what is visible in the fertile crescent and elsewhere as ruins of sedentary villages heavily dependent on grains grown in fields, there is a whole separate tropical route to farming via gradual intensification of gathering. This route has been essentially invisible to archaeologists.

The Pygmies stop growing at a early age and the early cecesion means they can reproduce faster for given resources in their environment. The Nilotic brideprice paid in cattle was meant there was selection for accelerated growth; once girls were a certain size they would be sought after and could be sold off at a young age. Those are not my ideas or the post authors, they are recent theories published by separately anthropologists. Peter is not the first person to propose such a theory, Darwin thought the differences in appearance around the world were due to sexual selection.

The alternative is to explain things like beards and long straight hair as inexplicable . As for dark skin we are in agreement that highly polygynous people are very dark indeed wherever they live in Africa. The similarity between sub Saharan Africans and people from Bougainville Island seem quite likely to derive from selection in a female garden agriculture system with associated polygyny.

See how silly this idea that short people are short to burrow through undergrowth is? Note that Lapps are short. Nilotics are not tall to stay cool. The Pygmies, Bantu and Nilotic physiques are related to what selection pressures they were under, and the terms of reproduction imposed by marriage practices and resources is the key to understanding each’s special characteristics The non- polygynous Pygmies are small, weak and much lighter in skin colour than the highly polygyous Bantu and Nilotics. Sprinting is the power sport, and people of mainly West African ancestry totally dominate sprinting. Basketball is for large fast men who can jump and blacks dominate that, and dominate the running positions of American Football even more . The Williams sisters domination of tennis is not caused by their “adeptness” it is mainly a function of their size and power. The post is talking about size and power and pro sports confirm blacks are larger and more powerful, just as people with inside knowledge (like Teddy Sheringham) have said. http://new.spectator.co.uk/2003/02/black-is-best/

None of the links you provided say anything about how common polygyny is in Yanomamo society, much less that it is anywhere on par in SS africa. The behavior described isn't terribly uncommon compared to tribal people elsewhere in the world. Yanomamo desire to have multiple wives doesn't translate to that being common in their society, or that such a thing is sustainable. Nevermind that bantu society isn't typically centered around war to the extent Yanomamo society is, or that the Yanomamo are stone age people with limited agriculture.

That 70,000 year divergence between bantus and pygmies struck me as very hard to believe, so I went to the link and found this: http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/1164.htm

"After a period of isolation, during which current phenotype differences between Pygmies and Bantu farmers accumulated, Pygmy women started marrying male Bantu farmers (but not the opposite). This trend started around 40,000 years ago, and continued until several thousand years ago."

Even that 30,000 year gap sounds hard to believe. I mean, aside from height, pygmies do not look *that* different from bantus, not at all what you'd expect for 70,000 years (which is somewhere in the range of africans vs. eurasians.)

The point about pygmies is that they're an example extreme rates of physical maturation can coexist with monogamy and extensive child rearing, even though that might be a very particular environmental adaption. It would be helpful if you could actually cite references to this thing about Sudanese girls, and I have never seen Peter propose this. Sexual selection in relation to looks isn't as particularly relevant to that issue.

I'm not sure what you mean by "The alternative is to explain things like beards and long straight hair as inexplicable". I think most human physical variation (aside from physique) is due to drift, very secondarily sexual selection and minimally natural selection. Yes, we're in agreement about polygyny being correlated with dark skin in SS africa, but not to the extent you think it is. You just seem to fixate on the fact Bougainville has been in a state of low level of warfare for awhile and the fact... wow, they're really dark. Is there anything unique about Bougainville warfare or their marriage system (IE on par with SS africa) or that the comparatively darkest parts of SS africa are similar in terms of social strife? (they're not.)

I'm not proposing any of those theories, but I think your fixation on sexual selection is even more far fetched. I do not see any indication pygmies are weak aside from their height. I have read they are incredibly flexible and have very loose joints, and their children exhibit marked physical development early on. Here's footage of a pygmy boy hacking a tree with a machete that's as tall as he is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDdXYYLoygM T

hey are a good deal lighter than bantus, but not dramatically so, and they're similar in color to various southern african bantus. This post, which is about the Hadza, are worth looking at, since they're as dark as bantus and aside from height are outwardly about the same looks-wise.

African-americans in the US are slightly shorter than whites. And I'm sorry, but sexual selection isn't as narrow as you make it out to be. Sexual dimorphism is usually typified by considerable differences between males and females, and that usually means more muscular, powerfully built males vs. females. There's no reason this doesn't translate to similar dynamics in humans, and Europeans are more sexually dymorphic than africans. And even then it's complex, as African-american women are much more prone to obesity than black men and white women, which doesn't work in their favor as being powerfully built, like you cite with the Williams sisters. Being good in sprinting and other "power" sports doesn't translate to all around good physical prowess. The Kalenjin are the best runners in the world, but they have very narrow, spindly frames that don't translate into prowess in other realms. Blacks have smaller lung capacity than whites, and that limits them in a variety of areas. As I mentioned, they aren't as over-represented in strong man, body building, MMA etc. fields.

Consider also the khoisan, another monogamous african population and the lightest of all. They exhibit some very unique physical features unseen anywhere else in the world (or atleast to the extent among them), like steatopygia, hanging labia etc. The women basically exhibit extreme secondary sex characteristics, and men have a tendency towards androgyny/neoteny, some exhbiting steatopygia too. Sexual selection is likely a role since it's been documented khoisan men prize steatopygia in women. But this is all in a highly monogamous people.

The nilotes aren't exactly masculine either. They usually have thin, narrow, spindly limbs, and long legs and short torsos. Many of them have a rather androgynous appearance. I've seen a lot of tribal south sudanese women who are muscular, but it's not as clear cut as you make it out to be.

Jim:

I should have specified more- the worst of mexican society is worse than most of what the worst of african-american society produces. African-american society does not produce drug cartels filled to the brim with psychopaths who regularly engage in mass murder and get off on dumping their mutilated victims out in public.

“And how to explain the historically low crime rates in mestizo countries like Chile and Costa Rica?” Costa Rica is around 80% white. You have a fair point about the developments in social system being able to affect the amount of violence, but I don’t think the post argues that any race is robotically killing irrespective of the social environment. There is an increase propensity under similar circumstances (groups in Western countries) with some societies successfully reducing violence and other not. I some places being in a gang gets you the girls. It is a difference that shows up in higher rates among population descended from highly polygynous areas. This is about access to women and one could point to propensity to force women into sex http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/pacific-beat/report-reveals-a-very-high-incidence-of-rape-in-bougainville/1189047

You keep saying that you have not read things that are there on the Wikis so could you do a little work before raising that objection again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanomami#Organization. The Yanomami can be classified as foraging horticulturalists, depending heavily on rainforest resources; they use slash-and-burn horticulture, grow bananas, gather fruit, and hunt animals and fish. [...] Polygamous families consist of a large patrifocal family unit based on one man, and smaller matrifocal subfamilies: each woman's family unit, composed of the woman and her children

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/06/10/the-yanomamo-and-the-origins-of-male-honor/Chagnon argues that the Yanomamö were driven by a biological desire to pass on their genes just as other animals were, and that their conflicts were almost entirely rooted in reproductive competition. “The tokens of wealth that we civilized people covet are largely irrelevant to success and survival in the tribal world and were irrelevant during most of human history,” “But women have always been the most valuable single resource that men fight for and defend.”Yanomamö man hoped to have multiple wives.[...] Chagnon found that 20% of the women in the villages he studied had been abducted from other villages. [...] “Let me emphasize the Yanomamö view that when members of a group acquire a reputation of timidity and cowardice, their neighbors take ruthless advantage of them, push them around, insult them publicly, and take their women. Thus it is strategically important to react decisively to any affront, no matter how trivial. If a group is small, the men try to make up for their numerical disadvantage by acting as if the group is bigger, nastier, more ferocious, and ready to fight on a moment’s notice. ”

http://the10000yearexplosion.com/human-cultural-diversity/Among mobile foragers there is a pattern that the closer to equator a group is the higher the proportion of its subsistence is derived from vegetable foods. Northern and extreme southern groups have more meat in their diet than do mid-latitude groups where more vegetables are consumed. A solid generalization about foragers is that women don’t hunt and that they do most of the gathering, so women contribute more of a group’s food in warmer latitudes. In these regions, particularly in humid forested areas, there is a very thin line between foraging and gardening: one can stick a gathered root in the ground, forget it as it propagates, and harvest it months later. While archaeologists generally think of the “origin of agriculture” as corresponding to what is visible in the fertile crescent and elsewhere as ruins of sedentary villages heavily dependent on grains grown in fields, there is a whole separate tropical route to farming via gradual intensification of gathering. This route has been essentially invisible to archaeologists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_expansion It is thought that Central African Pygmies and Bantus branched out from a common ancestral population c. 70,000 years ago.[17]

The Pygmies stop growing at a early age and the early cecesion means they can reproduce faster for given resources in their environment. The Nilotic brideprice paid in cattle was meant there was selection for accelerated growth; once girls were a certain size they would be sought after and could be sold off at a young age. Those are not my ideas or the post authors, they are recent theories published by separately anthropologists. Peter is not the first person to propose such a theory, Darwin thought the differences in appearance around the world were due to sexual selection.

The alternative is to explain things like beards and long straight hair as inexplicable . As for dark skin we are in agreement that highly polygynous people are very dark indeed wherever they live in Africa. The similarity between sub Saharan Africans and people from Bougainville Island seem quite likely to derive from selection in a female garden agriculture system with associated polygyny.

See how silly this idea that short people are short to burrow through undergrowth is? Note that Lapps are short. Nilotics are not tall to stay cool. The Pygmies, Bantu and Nilotic physiques are related to what selection pressures they were under, and the terms of reproduction imposed by marriage practices and resources is the key to understanding each's special characteristics The non- polygynous Pygmies are small, weak and much lighter in skin colour than the highly polygyous Bantu and Nilotics. Sprinting is the power sport, and people of mainly West African ancestry totally dominate sprinting. Basketball is for large fast men who can jump and blacks dominate that, and dominate the running positions of American Football even more . The Williams sisters domination of tennis is not caused by their "adeptness" it is mainly a function of their size and power. The post is talking about size and power and pro sports confirm blacks are larger and more powerful, just as people with inside knowledge (like Teddy Sheringham) have said. http://new.spectator.co.uk/2003/02/black-is-best/

“The similarity between sub Saharan Africans and people from Bougainville Island seem quite likely to derive from selection in a female garden agriculture system with associated polygyny.”

Rates of well above 40/100k have been reported throughout Europe in the past, and we also have to consider how incomplete records were back then. Oxford in one year had a murder rate of over 100/100k in one year in the 1300's: https://soci.ucalgary.ca/brannigan/sites/soci.ucalgary.ca.brannigan/files/long-term-historical-trends-of-violent-crime.pdf (page 85)

I've long found the usage of homicide rates for very small, tribal populations incredibly misleading in this manner. You cannot extrapolate the significance of murders and war in small tribal bands/villages (and war is where most deaths in them occur) to larger, more settled populations, much less modern ones. A murder rate of 660-690 per 100,000 in modern society would be one in which there would be basically a state of complete, unrelenting warfare, but I've seen little indication settled, more modern peoples in Papua New Guinea are quite this bad. Even Port Moresby isn't on that level.

Consider also the Aka pygmies: http://www.cep.ucsb.edu/grads/Sell/AkaSite.html

"The homicide rate of the Aka is very low for a foraging people (approximately .003%) though still higher than the United States (approximately .00005% in 2008). There has never been a report of an Aka woman dying from male violence (Hewlett et al. 1986)."

This is a bit hard to parse to actual homicide rates per 100k, but .003% is many times larger than .00005%, and the US murder rate is typically around 5/100k, so I'd imagine the Aka homicide rate, taken as a literal value, is many times higher. It also seems unlikely that the record of no women dying due to male violence would persist if they became more settled, among other behaviors they exhibit, like the extreme gender equality. What it comes down to is you cannot so readily compare small tribal populations to modern, settled people.

I'm aware that incarceration has lowered the african-american murder rate, and I've also heard it argued that if all murders were solved, their rate would rise (but I imagine it would for whites too), but the rest your claims are kind of extreme. The link between modern policing and crime is very debatable, nevermind how corrupt the modern US police system is. It would be helpful if you could properly compare murder rates in african countries and parse them from deaths due to worse access to modern medical care.

And churches and church-sponsored youth groups? Really?

"It’s a “guarantee” for lower rates of personal violence. I’m not trying to create a unified theory of everything. Human societies are multidimensional and I recognize that other factors are involved."

No, it isn't. Recorded murder rates in the public sphere going back farther in history are very difficult to come by, but we have no shortage of evidence of incredible barbarism and atrocities in war from every corner of the globe in more distant times. Most deaths in modern tribal populations occur in war, but you don't atrocities against civilians, POW's etc. on the part of pre-modern societies can be particularly indicative of their propensity to violence in the social and public spheres. If we want to talk about pre-modern tribal peoples and what the historical record tells us, we can look at any number of native american peoples or the mongols and the huns as some prime examples that I've mentioned before. I never accused you of trying to create a unified theory of everything, but you are boiling far too much down to differences in polygyny vs. monogamy.

I've seen people often claim the drug trade is heavily responsible for crime in african-american communities, and they of course overlook things like how their crime rate isn't unique compared to african populations throughout the world. On the other hand, you are allowing the drug trade as being the reason for the incredible homicides in latin america. I don't deny that this is why there has been a recent spike, but homicide rates were very high even before this spike, and you have to consider how many murders and other crimes go unreported.

I don't think it's as different of a profile as you imply. The presence of organized crime, and especially on the scale as seen in latin america, in essence allows violent men and sociopathic/psychopathic impulses to be channeled into different realms and enterprises. If the drug trade disappeared, the large pool of violent, sociopathic men that composes them wouldn't disappear. Crime and violence would by and large just become less "organized." And what we see from cartels isn't pretty- mass murders and executions, sadistic torture, indiscriminate killings and shock tactics like dumping mutilated, tortured masses of bodies out in public. It's the kind of stuff you see in actual war zones, usually in Africa or the middle east. And I mentioned indiscriminate killings- here's what we see in Honduras against women: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2181118/Female-murder-rate-skyrockets-Honduras-dozens-women-killed-month.html

Just about any quote would be relevant, especially to your claim that homicide in africa is a "very different profile", but here's some particularly choice ones:

"it is believed many of the women are killed because of vengeance attacks against family members as well as many being targeted and raped in their own homes."

"Sunday's report noted that 'more than 90 percent of the cases have never been investigated'.

Last year, a report by Oxfam Honduras and a Honduran NGO, the Tribunal of Women Against Femicide, said that women were dying because of a deadly mixture of gun crime, political instability and the 'systematic indifference' of the police.

It is thought convictions for the crimes are rare and the report stated that between 2008 and 2010 there were 1,100 reported cases of femicide.

However, only 211 of those made it to court with a further 4.2 per cent of these resulting in a conviction."

Venezuela and Brazil might lack the elaborate, organized crime places like Honduras have, but violent usually isn't much better. In Venezuela, which is overwhelmingly mestizo, unlike heavily black/mulatto Brazil, we find this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Venezuela

"Crime in Venezuela is a pervasive issue. Venezuela was ranked the most insecure nation in the world by Gallup in 2013 with the United Nations stating that such crime is due to the poor political and economic environment in the country.[1][2] The country's murder rate is also one of the highest in the world.[3][4][5] In 2008, polls indicated that crime was the number one concern of voters.[6] According to Venezuela's Prosecutor General’s Office, 98% of crimes in Venezuela do not result in prosecution.[7]"

Santoculto:

"You can have a higher proportion of crime rates caused by organized criminal group but with a general or average pacific population."

I agree, sociopathy/propensity to violence can be concentrated in different segments of the population depending on where you look. The hispanic murder rate in the US is something like half (or less) that of african-americans, and there are many towns and cities in the US with large or predominantly hispanic populations with low or average homicide rates. I imagine it would be even lower if you excluded illegal immigrants, or considered solely mexican-americans. On the other hand, the worst segments of Mexican society I would say are much worse than what you often see in african-americans.

“the worst segments of Mexican society .. are much worse than what you often see in african-americans” – Obviously if you are going to compare Mexican violence to African-American violence you need to compare average to average or the worst of one to the worst of the other not the worst of Mexicans to average African-Americans.

"And how to explain the historically low crime rates in mestizo countries like Chile and Costa Rica?" Costa Rica is around 80% white. You have a fair point about the developments in social system being able to affect the amount of violence, but I don't think the post argues that any race is robotically killing irrespective of the social environment. There is an increase propensity under similar circumstances (groups in Western countries) with some societies successfully reducing violence and other not. I some places being in a gang gets you the girls. It is a difference that shows up in higher rates among population descended from highly polygynous areas. This is about access to women and one could point to propensity to force women into sex http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/pacific-beat/report-reveals-a-very-high-incidence-of-rape-in-bougainville/1189047

I think you are also missing the issue of pre-modern warfare with respect to polygamy. Before the industrial age, warfare consisted particularly in Europe and Asia of often fairly large armies, organized and fed by a central authority, that would engage (particularly among Europeans) in shock battles of annihilation of the enemy.

You can see this pattern with the classical Greek phalanx. Lots and lots of small olive farmers, ranked up in a row, advancing over the battlefield AT A WALK, with spears in front of them, essentially a giant impaling machine. See also the Swiss Pikemen 1,500 years later. The Roman innovation was to create columns of heavily armored (in the front only) infantry men who would form up in lines with shields overlapped with short stabbing swords or spears. A giant stabbing machine. To a lesser extent, this was how the Chinese fought as well. In a line. Organized. In a battle of mass annihilation.

This was a VERY successful way of war. Non Westerners tended to get destroyed, whenever Western forces were well organized and in significant numbers. It required however:

High male cooperation and trust.
Lots of discipline to stay in line, keep the formation, and thus the fighting effectiveness.
A large supply of men used to hard, repeated, physical labor in farming.

Herodotus and others compared fighting to reaping an especially bloody harvest. Small olive farmers in particular seemed very effective in the Med for a very long time.

By contrast, the African way of fighting seemed to be a few charges, massacre and loot what one could, and then run away. Decisive battles continued to the enemy's annihilation seemed not possible even with Shaka Zulu's forces, they were not organized or disciplined to the extent required. This also seems to have been the Aztec and Inca way of fighting, according to Conquistadors, and characterized the way of fighting of the Sioux, the Comanche, the Apache, the Seminole, and the Iroquois.

It seems shock battles of annihilation with men all in a line and able to stand up to hours of slaughter and battle to destroy the enemy totally, are both very successful and require a strong population of monogamous men in a nuclear family.

I know Pinker thinks the world is getting less violent, the upcoming battle for Europe, between natives and half the Third World wanting to move there, is likely to prove him decisively wrong. Europe has nice things and the people who live there if they want to keep them will have to kill to do so. It has been ever thus.

Apache and Comanche raiding was primarily done to steal horses and cattle. If possible raiding parties tried to get away with horses and cattle without having to actually fight anybody. It is true that if an Apache was killed on a raid his kinsmen would feel it necessary to kill somebody from the village they had raided but in general the Apaches and Comanches had no genocidal intentions. Both were totally dependent on raiding and they knew that if they wiped out or drove away the Spanish they themselves would be doomed.

You keep saying that you have not read things that are there on the Wikis so could you do a little work before raising that objection again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanomami#Organization. The Yanomami can be classified as foraging horticulturalists, depending heavily on rainforest resources; they use slash-and-burn horticulture, grow bananas, gather fruit, and hunt animals and fish. [...] Polygamous families consist of a large patrifocal family unit based on one man, and smaller matrifocal subfamilies: each woman's family unit, composed of the woman and her children

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/06/10/the-yanomamo-and-the-origins-of-male-honor/Chagnon argues that the Yanomamö were driven by a biological desire to pass on their genes just as other animals were, and that their conflicts were almost entirely rooted in reproductive competition. “The tokens of wealth that we civilized people covet are largely irrelevant to success and survival in the tribal world and were irrelevant during most of human history,” “But women have always been the most valuable single resource that men fight for and defend.”Yanomamö man hoped to have multiple wives.[...] Chagnon found that 20% of the women in the villages he studied had been abducted from other villages. [...] “Let me emphasize the Yanomamö view that when members of a group acquire a reputation of timidity and cowardice, their neighbors take ruthless advantage of them, push them around, insult them publicly, and take their women. Thus it is strategically important to react decisively to any affront, no matter how trivial. If a group is small, the men try to make up for their numerical disadvantage by acting as if the group is bigger, nastier, more ferocious, and ready to fight on a moment’s notice. ”

http://the10000yearexplosion.com/human-cultural-diversity/Among mobile foragers there is a pattern that the closer to equator a group is the higher the proportion of its subsistence is derived from vegetable foods. Northern and extreme southern groups have more meat in their diet than do mid-latitude groups where more vegetables are consumed. A solid generalization about foragers is that women don’t hunt and that they do most of the gathering, so women contribute more of a group’s food in warmer latitudes. In these regions, particularly in humid forested areas, there is a very thin line between foraging and gardening: one can stick a gathered root in the ground, forget it as it propagates, and harvest it months later. While archaeologists generally think of the “origin of agriculture” as corresponding to what is visible in the fertile crescent and elsewhere as ruins of sedentary villages heavily dependent on grains grown in fields, there is a whole separate tropical route to farming via gradual intensification of gathering. This route has been essentially invisible to archaeologists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_expansion It is thought that Central African Pygmies and Bantus branched out from a common ancestral population c. 70,000 years ago.[17]

The Pygmies stop growing at a early age and the early cecesion means they can reproduce faster for given resources in their environment. The Nilotic brideprice paid in cattle was meant there was selection for accelerated growth; once girls were a certain size they would be sought after and could be sold off at a young age. Those are not my ideas or the post authors, they are recent theories published by separately anthropologists. Peter is not the first person to propose such a theory, Darwin thought the differences in appearance around the world were due to sexual selection.

The alternative is to explain things like beards and long straight hair as inexplicable . As for dark skin we are in agreement that highly polygynous people are very dark indeed wherever they live in Africa. The similarity between sub Saharan Africans and people from Bougainville Island seem quite likely to derive from selection in a female garden agriculture system with associated polygyny.

See how silly this idea that short people are short to burrow through undergrowth is? Note that Lapps are short. Nilotics are not tall to stay cool. The Pygmies, Bantu and Nilotic physiques are related to what selection pressures they were under, and the terms of reproduction imposed by marriage practices and resources is the key to understanding each's special characteristics The non- polygynous Pygmies are small, weak and much lighter in skin colour than the highly polygyous Bantu and Nilotics. Sprinting is the power sport, and people of mainly West African ancestry totally dominate sprinting. Basketball is for large fast men who can jump and blacks dominate that, and dominate the running positions of American Football even more . The Williams sisters domination of tennis is not caused by their "adeptness" it is mainly a function of their size and power. The post is talking about size and power and pro sports confirm blacks are larger and more powerful, just as people with inside knowledge (like Teddy Sheringham) have said. http://new.spectator.co.uk/2003/02/black-is-best/

None of the links you provided say anything about how common polygyny is in Yanomamo society, much less that it is anywhere on par in SS africa. The behavior described isn’t terribly uncommon compared to tribal people elsewhere in the world. Yanomamo desire to have multiple wives doesn’t translate to that being common in their society, or that such a thing is sustainable. Nevermind that bantu society isn’t typically centered around war to the extent Yanomamo society is, or that the Yanomamo are stone age people with limited agriculture.

That 70,000 year divergence between bantus and pygmies struck me as very hard to believe, so I went to the link and found this: http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/1164.htm

“After a period of isolation, during which current phenotype differences between Pygmies and Bantu farmers accumulated, Pygmy women started marrying male Bantu farmers (but not the opposite). This trend started around 40,000 years ago, and continued until several thousand years ago.”

Even that 30,000 year gap sounds hard to believe. I mean, aside from height, pygmies do not look *that* different from bantus, not at all what you’d expect for 70,000 years (which is somewhere in the range of africans vs. eurasians.)

The point about pygmies is that they’re an example extreme rates of physical maturation can coexist with monogamy and extensive child rearing, even though that might be a very particular environmental adaption. It would be helpful if you could actually cite references to this thing about Sudanese girls, and I have never seen Peter propose this. Sexual selection in relation to looks isn’t as particularly relevant to that issue.

I’m not sure what you mean by “The alternative is to explain things like beards and long straight hair as inexplicable”. I think most human physical variation (aside from physique) is due to drift, very secondarily sexual selection and minimally natural selection. Yes, we’re in agreement about polygyny being correlated with dark skin in SS africa, but not to the extent you think it is. You just seem to fixate on the fact Bougainville has been in a state of low level of warfare for awhile and the fact… wow, they’re really dark. Is there anything unique about Bougainville warfare or their marriage system (IE on par with SS africa) or that the comparatively darkest parts of SS africa are similar in terms of social strife? (they’re not.)

I’m not proposing any of those theories, but I think your fixation on sexual selection is even more far fetched. I do not see any indication pygmies are weak aside from their height. I have read they are incredibly flexible and have very loose joints, and their children exhibit marked physical development early on. Here’s footage of a pygmy boy hacking a tree with a machete that’s as tall as he is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDdXYYLoygM T

hey are a good deal lighter than bantus, but not dramatically so, and they’re similar in color to various southern african bantus. This post, which is about the Hadza, are worth looking at, since they’re as dark as bantus and aside from height are outwardly about the same looks-wise.

African-americans in the US are slightly shorter than whites. And I’m sorry, but sexual selection isn’t as narrow as you make it out to be. Sexual dimorphism is usually typified by considerable differences between males and females, and that usually means more muscular, powerfully built males vs. females. There’s no reason this doesn’t translate to similar dynamics in humans, and Europeans are more sexually dymorphic than africans. And even then it’s complex, as African-american women are much more prone to obesity than black men and white women, which doesn’t work in their favor as being powerfully built, like you cite with the Williams sisters. Being good in sprinting and other “power” sports doesn’t translate to all around good physical prowess. The Kalenjin are the best runners in the world, but they have very narrow, spindly frames that don’t translate into prowess in other realms. Blacks have smaller lung capacity than whites, and that limits them in a variety of areas. As I mentioned, they aren’t as over-represented in strong man, body building, MMA etc. fields.

Consider also the khoisan, another monogamous african population and the lightest of all. They exhibit some very unique physical features unseen anywhere else in the world (or atleast to the extent among them), like steatopygia, hanging labia etc. The women basically exhibit extreme secondary sex characteristics, and men have a tendency towards androgyny/neoteny, some exhbiting steatopygia too. Sexual selection is likely a role since it’s been documented khoisan men prize steatopygia in women. But this is all in a highly monogamous people.

The nilotes aren’t exactly masculine either. They usually have thin, narrow, spindly limbs, and long legs and short torsos. Many of them have a rather androgynous appearance. I’ve seen a lot of tribal south sudanese women who are muscular, but it’s not as clear cut as you make it out to be.

Jim:

I should have specified more- the worst of mexican society is worse than most of what the worst of african-american society produces. African-american society does not produce drug cartels filled to the brim with psychopaths who regularly engage in mass murder and get off on dumping their mutilated victims out in public.

I should have specified more- the worst of mexican society is worse than most of what the worst of african-american society produces. African-american society does not produce drug cartels filled to the brim with psychopaths who regularly engage in mass murder and get off on dumping their mutilated victims out in public.

Why do some people think it's okay to make gross, hyperbolic, and sometimes downright inaccurate negative generalizations about non-Black races just to make Blacks seem a little better? Are you Black yourself, by any chance?

First off, if you think African-American society is not filled to the brim with psychopaths who regularly engage in murder and other violent acts for all to see, then you need to read the news more often. Or just visit WorldStarHipHop once in a while. There's no shortage of stories of African-Americans committing horrific and senseless violence against innocent bystanders.

Second, if the Mexican cartels seem worse, it's only because they're A LOT more organized and sophisticated than any African-American gang. The Mexican cartels have a capable hacker network who can track dissenters on the internet, even when the dissenters hide behind a proxy. They're an organized crime group who differ from the Sicilian Mafia in that they also commit acts of terrorism against the populace. That's one of the reasons they've paralyzed Mexican society to such an extent. The populace knows that if you speak out, even "anonymously" on the internet, you're liable to get killed. Furthermore, that's also why they make those brutal public displays of their victims. They're essentially waging a terrorism campaign to instill fear in their enemies, not unlike Muslim terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda or Russian Neo-Nazi groups, who also release beheading videos and whatnot.

African-American gangs, or any African crime syndicate for the matter, just haven't demonstrated that level of sophistication or organization. The parsimonious HBD explanation is that Mexicans (as well as Arabs) are significantly more intelligent than Africans on average, and so their cartels/terrorist groups are a lot more efficient than anything African-Americans can muster. I'm not sure you want to go down that direction. But there could be other explanations. However, to claim that the dregs of Mexican society are worse or more sadistic than the dregs of African-American society is pure fantasy.

And to the person who claimed that Costa Rica is 80% White: you're wrong. Look up the autosomal DNA studies for the country.

"... their children exhibit marked physical development early on"That is why the result of some kind of selection, for early development and reproduction seem a little more likely than drift to me. The Nilotics are very tall, and have marriage practices with brideprice in cattle. Surely you have read of this central part of their society even if you have never read of the theory that the extreme height of Nilotics is a result of selection for taller girls who can be eligible for marriage sooner. If you count the Khoisans with Bantu, Nilotics and Pygmies there are four groups in sub Saharan Africa who have different modes of existence are quite different in appearance, and have been living in the same part of continent for hundreds of generations. The Bantu and the Pygmies live right beside one another and Pygmy men never marry Bantu women.

Anyway, the post is all about the Bantu agriculturalists compared to hunter gatherers. You keep bringing up non power sports, but Bantu especially west African descended populations dominate sprinting not distance running and that is good evidence they are more powerful. Male male competition and reproduction seems emphasised in female farming systems while hunter gather men have a more economical type of physique There is no proof it is not drift admittedly.

None of the links you provided say anything about how common polygyny is in Yanomamo society, much less that it is anywhere on par in SS africa. The behavior described isn't terribly uncommon compared to tribal people elsewhere in the world. Yanomamo desire to have multiple wives doesn't translate to that being common in their society, or that such a thing is sustainable. Nevermind that bantu society isn't typically centered around war to the extent Yanomamo society is, or that the Yanomamo are stone age people with limited agriculture.

That 70,000 year divergence between bantus and pygmies struck me as very hard to believe, so I went to the link and found this: http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/1164.htm

"After a period of isolation, during which current phenotype differences between Pygmies and Bantu farmers accumulated, Pygmy women started marrying male Bantu farmers (but not the opposite). This trend started around 40,000 years ago, and continued until several thousand years ago."

Even that 30,000 year gap sounds hard to believe. I mean, aside from height, pygmies do not look *that* different from bantus, not at all what you'd expect for 70,000 years (which is somewhere in the range of africans vs. eurasians.)

The point about pygmies is that they're an example extreme rates of physical maturation can coexist with monogamy and extensive child rearing, even though that might be a very particular environmental adaption. It would be helpful if you could actually cite references to this thing about Sudanese girls, and I have never seen Peter propose this. Sexual selection in relation to looks isn't as particularly relevant to that issue.

I'm not sure what you mean by "The alternative is to explain things like beards and long straight hair as inexplicable". I think most human physical variation (aside from physique) is due to drift, very secondarily sexual selection and minimally natural selection. Yes, we're in agreement about polygyny being correlated with dark skin in SS africa, but not to the extent you think it is. You just seem to fixate on the fact Bougainville has been in a state of low level of warfare for awhile and the fact... wow, they're really dark. Is there anything unique about Bougainville warfare or their marriage system (IE on par with SS africa) or that the comparatively darkest parts of SS africa are similar in terms of social strife? (they're not.)

I'm not proposing any of those theories, but I think your fixation on sexual selection is even more far fetched. I do not see any indication pygmies are weak aside from their height. I have read they are incredibly flexible and have very loose joints, and their children exhibit marked physical development early on. Here's footage of a pygmy boy hacking a tree with a machete that's as tall as he is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDdXYYLoygM T

hey are a good deal lighter than bantus, but not dramatically so, and they're similar in color to various southern african bantus. This post, which is about the Hadza, are worth looking at, since they're as dark as bantus and aside from height are outwardly about the same looks-wise.

African-americans in the US are slightly shorter than whites. And I'm sorry, but sexual selection isn't as narrow as you make it out to be. Sexual dimorphism is usually typified by considerable differences between males and females, and that usually means more muscular, powerfully built males vs. females. There's no reason this doesn't translate to similar dynamics in humans, and Europeans are more sexually dymorphic than africans. And even then it's complex, as African-american women are much more prone to obesity than black men and white women, which doesn't work in their favor as being powerfully built, like you cite with the Williams sisters. Being good in sprinting and other "power" sports doesn't translate to all around good physical prowess. The Kalenjin are the best runners in the world, but they have very narrow, spindly frames that don't translate into prowess in other realms. Blacks have smaller lung capacity than whites, and that limits them in a variety of areas. As I mentioned, they aren't as over-represented in strong man, body building, MMA etc. fields.

Consider also the khoisan, another monogamous african population and the lightest of all. They exhibit some very unique physical features unseen anywhere else in the world (or atleast to the extent among them), like steatopygia, hanging labia etc. The women basically exhibit extreme secondary sex characteristics, and men have a tendency towards androgyny/neoteny, some exhbiting steatopygia too. Sexual selection is likely a role since it's been documented khoisan men prize steatopygia in women. But this is all in a highly monogamous people.

The nilotes aren't exactly masculine either. They usually have thin, narrow, spindly limbs, and long legs and short torsos. Many of them have a rather androgynous appearance. I've seen a lot of tribal south sudanese women who are muscular, but it's not as clear cut as you make it out to be.

Jim:

I should have specified more- the worst of mexican society is worse than most of what the worst of african-american society produces. African-american society does not produce drug cartels filled to the brim with psychopaths who regularly engage in mass murder and get off on dumping their mutilated victims out in public.

I should have specified more- the worst of mexican society is worse than most of what the worst of african-american society produces. African-american society does not produce drug cartels filled to the brim with psychopaths who regularly engage in mass murder and get off on dumping their mutilated victims out in public.

Why do some people think it’s okay to make gross, hyperbolic, and sometimes downright inaccurate negative generalizations about non-Black races just to make Blacks seem a little better? Are you Black yourself, by any chance?

First off, if you think African-American society is not filled to the brim with psychopaths who regularly engage in murder and other violent acts for all to see, then you need to read the news more often. Or just visit WorldStarHipHop once in a while. There’s no shortage of stories of African-Americans committing horrific and senseless violence against innocent bystanders.

Second, if the Mexican cartels seem worse, it’s only because they’re A LOT more organized and sophisticated than any African-American gang. The Mexican cartels have a capable hacker network who can track dissenters on the internet, even when the dissenters hide behind a proxy. They’re an organized crime group who differ from the Sicilian Mafia in that they also commit acts of terrorism against the populace. That’s one of the reasons they’ve paralyzed Mexican society to such an extent. The populace knows that if you speak out, even “anonymously” on the internet, you’re liable to get killed. Furthermore, that’s also why they make those brutal public displays of their victims. They’re essentially waging a terrorism campaign to instill fear in their enemies, not unlike Muslim terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda or Russian Neo-Nazi groups, who also release beheading videos and whatnot.

African-American gangs, or any African crime syndicate for the matter, just haven’t demonstrated that level of sophistication or organization. The parsimonious HBD explanation is that Mexicans (as well as Arabs) are significantly more intelligent than Africans on average, and so their cartels/terrorist groups are a lot more efficient than anything African-Americans can muster. I’m not sure you want to go down that direction. But there could be other explanations. However, to claim that the dregs of Mexican society are worse or more sadistic than the dregs of African-American society is pure fantasy.

And to the person who claimed that Costa Rica is 80% White: you’re wrong. Look up the autosomal DNA studies for the country.

I would be surprised if many modern anthropologists significantly attributed male farming in the savannah to pastoralism, as the animal drawn plough was not typically used there and manuring was limited.

Point well taken. If I could rewrite this column, I would replace the following sentence:

Goody also notes that polygyny rates have remained high in the Sahel, where pastoralism has nonetheless increased male participation in farming.

with

Goody also notes that women are much less self-reliant in the northern savannah of West Africa:

"In savannah regions where water is scarce and trees scattered, their collection may make great demands on a woman's time. So too does the grinding of hard grain, in the absence of mills. In all these domestic pursuits the savannah is more demanding on a woman's time than the forest and consequently she can often make less contribution to agriculture. (Goody, 1973)

Yet polygyny rates have remained high. Goody gives the example of Ghana ...

A society where women are more violent than men is an extreme rarity in human history.

I agree, but the sex difference in personal violence varies considerably. It's much greater in high-polygyny societies than in low-polygyny societies. I'm talking here about personal violence and not state-organized violence.

The murder rates of European countries were dramatically higher in the past (which you have written on), comparable to african americans and other third and/or world countries.

Yes, homicide rates were much higher in late medieval England: 20 to 40 per year per 100,000. But that rate is still lower than what we see in high-polygyny societies, such as the Gebusi, Goilala, Hew, and Agta of New Guinea, where it's about 660 to 690 per 100,000.

African Americans do not live in an environment of intense male-male rivalry for women (largely because so many young men are incarcerated). They also live in a society with modern policing and religious constraints on aggressive behavior (churches and church-sponsored youth groups). If all of these factors were absent, their homicide rate would be much higher.

low polygyny is not even remotely a guarantee for low violence.

It's a "guarantee" for lower rates of personal violence. I'm not trying to create a unified theory of everything. Human societies are multidimensional and I recognize that other factors are involved.

And yes, some latin american countries do surpass sub-saharan african ones,

The surge of violence in certain Latin American countries (in Central America) is recent and related to the drug trade:

In the last five years, homicide rates have increased in five out of eight countries in Central America, with some countries seeing their rate more than double in the same period. These trends are largely attributable to fluctuations in cocaine trafficking in Central America, which can lead to criminal conflicts as a result of both increases and decreases in drug flows, with the latter particularly resulting in increased competition between drug trafficking groups.

Homicide in Africa has a very different profile. It's more related to sexual jealousy and personal conflict. Women in particular are more often victims than is the case in Central America:

Data also indicate that Africa is the region with the highest female homicide rate, showing that where high homicide rates are not driven to the same extent by organized crime, street crime, nonspecific lethal violence and/or intimate partner family-related homicide all play an important role and women evidently fall victim to all three.

The homicide situation in Venezuela and Brazil is qualitatively different from that of Central America. It's less a matter of organized gangs and is more likely to involve solitary men or small groups of men.

Peter,

Have you ever examined polyandry? How common it is, where and how it tends to arise, the dynamics of it, etc? That might be an interesting topic for a future post.

Here’s a recent article about polyandry in rural China in the 18th and 19th century:

in 18th and 19th century rural China, women took two (or sometimes more) husbands. This happened in every province in China, and for the most part, their communities tolerated or even accepted it.

The little-known prevalence of polyandry comes to light in Matthew Sommer’s fascinating history of peasant family structures, Polyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China. Since most peasants were illiterate and the Qing elite regarded polyandry as supremely immoral, there are few traces of the practice. Sommer, a Stanford University historian, draws descriptions from court cases.

Take, for example, the story of a farmer named Zheng Guoshun and his wife, Jiang Shi, in the southern province of Fujian in the mid-1700s. When Zheng suddenly went blind, his wife recruited a younger man named Jiang Yilang (no relation) to move in with the couple and help out on the farm, in exchange for sex. For nearly three decades, relations among the trio seemed to have gone smoothly, and Jiang Shi bore two daughters. When Zheng died of natural causes, 28 years after the arrangement began, Jiang Shi and Jiang Yilang continued their relationship.

Though the Zheng-Jiang-Jiang union did happen to be the longest-term polyandrous relationship Sommer found, the story is hardly unusual. Some polyandrous relationships combusted after a few months (often ending in a crime that landed them in the legal record). But many endured for years or even decades.

So why take two husbands? Contrary to modern-day associations with polyamory, the purpose was to protect the family.

Given how hard it was for peasants to survive, this was no easy feat to pull off. Between 1700 and 1850, the Middle Kingdom’s population tripled in size. Cultivated farmland, however, only doubled—encouraging people to simply work the land even harder. That left more people depending on less productive land for food. Mass famine was common.

Meanwhile, thanks to female infanticide and the Chinese elite’s concubine habit, among other things, the Middle Kingdom was amidst a “marriage crunch,” as demographic historian Ted Telford put it. The scarcity of demand meant rural men had to pay a heavy bride price—steeper than most could afford. The value of women’s sexual attention, companionship, and child-bearing capacity rose too.

When disaster struck—be it flooding or crop failure, or the personal calamity of injury or illness—two-worker families often earned too little to eat. Some families opted to sell of their children or allow a wealthier man buy the wife.

Instead of having to hock her kid or put the wife on the market, a family could find a second husband to bring in extra income and let families pool resources more efficiently. The primary couple gained economic security from this arrangement, while second husbands got a family and, often, the chance for offspring to care for them in their old age.

Many of these relationships were formalized according to local marriage custom. Some signed a contract, even though it was inadmissible in the Qing court. The two husbands commonly swore an oath of brotherhood (possibly in a bid to protect the first husband’s ego).

“Why do some people think it’s okay to make gross, hyperbolic, and sometimes downright inaccurate negative generalizations about non-Black races just to make Blacks seem a little better? Are you Black yourself, by any chance?”

No, I’m not black. I like your question though- it could easily be read as “Why do some people think it’s okay to make gross, hyperbolic, and sometimes downright negative generalizations about non-black races just to make nigh- I mean, blacks seem a little better? Saying the same things about blacks isn’t gross, hyperbolic, and downright negative or inaccurate, because they’re without a doubt the absolute dregs of humanity, so don’t you dare say anything like that about Mexicans.”

I didn’t deny that african-american society has plenty of sociopaths/psychopaths, I just feel there’s a distinct sadism and inhumanity among Mexican drug cartels that isn’t seen quite to the extent in african-americans, or even africans (unless it’s in a full fledged warzone). It’s not just mexican drug cartels though- we can also talk about MS-13 or whatever cartels/gangs brutalize Honduras and other latin american countries with incredible murder rates.

I’m aware that the higher intelligence of mexicans likely plays a role in the organization of mexican drug cartels, but the average mexican IQ is like what, around 90? No higher than the low 90′s, and that’s in part brought up by white Mexicans, so we’d likely be talking 90 for the typical mexican mestizo. A several point difference has big ramifications, but it becomes kind of a stretch to act like an IQ difference of 5 points is that worthwhile when it’s still that low, that we’d be seeing cartel violence comparable to mexicans if the african-american IQ was higher. I really don’t mind going that direction at all, because if you payed attention to the rest of my post (or anything else I’ve posted in this thread), it’s clear I’m not opposed in the least to talking about biological differences, and I also made the caveat that different populations can have violence/psychopathy differentially concentrated in the population, so I’m not talking about the average mexican vs. the average african-american. It seems like you just homed in on the fact I dared say maybe blacks aren’t the worst people in the world and I’m somehow slandering the poor people of the mexican drug cartels.

Can I ask you why some people think it’s okay to home in on blacks as the absolute worst humanity has to offer and make gross, hyperbolic, and often downright negative, untrue generalizations about them and downplay anything equally bad or worse on the part of non-blacks, often because their internal thinking boils down to “I just really hate them”?

Can I also ask you why you ignored everything else I said and posted something as dishonest and pathetic as this?

And I don’t think it’s pure fantasy at all. If you want to look at a historical antecedent, look at who reigned in Mexico before the Spaniards- the Aztecs, one of the most uniquely violent and sadistic civilizations to have ever existed, who engaged in borderline industrial levels of human sacrifice and had state sanctioned cannibalism, who were widely hated throughout Mexico and prompted various states to ally with the Spaniards to vanquish them.

None of the statistics support your claims, so you're left making vague and unsubstantiated statements like "there’s a distinct sadism and inhumanity among Mexican drug cartels that isn’t seen quite to the extent in african-americans."

For example, we can compare African-American with Hispanic-American crime rates. Unfortunately for you, African-Americans do not look good in this comparison:

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/hispanic.htm

As f0r IQ, according to this study, Mexican Mestizos have an average IQ of 94 while White Mexicans have an average IQ of 98:

So once again, your claims about their intelligence is correct. Compare those numbers to the pathetic African-American IQ of 85. That's almost 2/3SD below the IQ of Mexican Mestizos.

And if you deny that there's a distinct sadism in African-American culture that rivals or surpasses anything found in Mexico, then how do you explain the popularity of sites like WorldStarHipHop among Blacks? What other group besides Blacks watches those kinds of videos for their entertainment value? How do you explain the brutal murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom and countless other similarly violent crimes perpetrated by African-Americans on a weekly basis?

As for MS-13, you are aware that those gangs were actually formed in the United States in response to African-American gangs and then later exported back to their home countries? If those Salvadorans had not been exposed to African-Americans, MS-13 and other Central American gangs might not even exist!

No matter how much you try to wish it away, any rational analysis of the statistics will show that Blacks are -- by a huge margin -- the greatest liability on society relative to any other racial group. There's a reason they tend to be resented the world over in a way that, e.g. Hispanics and Arabs, are not. Perhaps some of that hatred is unjustified, and perhaps there are non-genetic reasons for the consistent dysfunction of the Black race wherever a representative sample is found, but when people express a much greater hostility towards Blacks than towards Hispanics, Arabs, or any other group, it's not an arbitrary choice to hate Blacks on their part. It's a hostility based on empirical facts.

"it becomes a kind of stretch to act like an IQ difference of 5 points is that worthwhile"

According to Linda Gottfredson a person with an IQ less than 75 is essentially unemployable in the present US economy. For African-Americans with an average IQ of 85 that would be 25% of the population while for Mexicans with an average IQ of 90 the corresponding figure would be 16%. So the five point difference can result in a substantial decrease in the economic underclass.

Note that the Aztecs were not unique among Meso-American civilizations which generally tended to be highly militaristic and genocidal.

“Why do some people think it’s okay to make gross, hyperbolic, and sometimes downright inaccurate negative generalizations about non-Black races just to make Blacks seem a little better?”

To be frank, I find this happens more in regards to blacks rather than non-black racial groups. The prevailing position on the objective reality of race amongst ‘black realists’ (race realists) is that blacks are the absolute apex when it comes to cultural debauchery and biological inferiority. Everything, both physiological and psychological, is exceedingly repulsive about them.

All other races get a golden pass.

Though, I guess you can’t help it. Like all inherently irrational humans (me included), you have a genetic propsensity to give in-group members a free ride on everything that they do while ballbusting out-group members at every given opportunity.

"Why do some people think it’s okay to make gross, hyperbolic, and sometimes downright inaccurate negative generalizations about non-Black races just to make Blacks seem a little better? Are you Black yourself, by any chance?"

No, I'm not black. I like your question though- it could easily be read as "Why do some people think it's okay to make gross, hyperbolic, and sometimes downright negative generalizations about non-black races just to make nigh- I mean, blacks seem a little better? Saying the same things about blacks isn't gross, hyperbolic, and downright negative or inaccurate, because they're without a doubt the absolute dregs of humanity, so don't you dare say anything like that about Mexicans."

I didn't deny that african-american society has plenty of sociopaths/psychopaths, I just feel there's a distinct sadism and inhumanity among Mexican drug cartels that isn't seen quite to the extent in african-americans, or even africans (unless it's in a full fledged warzone). It's not just mexican drug cartels though- we can also talk about MS-13 or whatever cartels/gangs brutalize Honduras and other latin american countries with incredible murder rates.

I'm aware that the higher intelligence of mexicans likely plays a role in the organization of mexican drug cartels, but the average mexican IQ is like what, around 90? No higher than the low 90's, and that's in part brought up by white Mexicans, so we'd likely be talking 90 for the typical mexican mestizo. A several point difference has big ramifications, but it becomes kind of a stretch to act like an IQ difference of 5 points is that worthwhile when it's still that low, that we'd be seeing cartel violence comparable to mexicans if the african-american IQ was higher. I really don't mind going that direction at all, because if you payed attention to the rest of my post (or anything else I've posted in this thread), it's clear I'm not opposed in the least to talking about biological differences, and I also made the caveat that different populations can have violence/psychopathy differentially concentrated in the population, so I'm not talking about the average mexican vs. the average african-american. It seems like you just homed in on the fact I dared say maybe blacks aren't the worst people in the world and I'm somehow slandering the poor people of the mexican drug cartels.

Can I ask you why some people think it's okay to home in on blacks as the absolute worst humanity has to offer and make gross, hyperbolic, and often downright negative, untrue generalizations about them and downplay anything equally bad or worse on the part of non-blacks, often because their internal thinking boils down to "I just really hate them"?

Can I also ask you why you ignored everything else I said and posted something as dishonest and pathetic as this?

And I don't think it's pure fantasy at all. If you want to look at a historical antecedent, look at who reigned in Mexico before the Spaniards- the Aztecs, one of the most uniquely violent and sadistic civilizations to have ever existed, who engaged in borderline industrial levels of human sacrifice and had state sanctioned cannibalism, who were widely hated throughout Mexico and prompted various states to ally with the Spaniards to vanquish them.

None of the statistics support your claims, so you’re left making vague and unsubstantiated statements like “there’s a distinct sadism and inhumanity among Mexican drug cartels that isn’t seen quite to the extent in african-americans.”

For example, we can compare African-American with Hispanic-American crime rates. Unfortunately for you, African-Americans do not look good in this comparison:

So once again, your claims about their intelligence is correct. Compare those numbers to the pathetic African-American IQ of 85. That’s almost 2/3SD below the IQ of Mexican Mestizos.

And if you deny that there’s a distinct sadism in African-American culture that rivals or surpasses anything found in Mexico, then how do you explain the popularity of sites like WorldStarHipHop among Blacks? What other group besides Blacks watches those kinds of videos for their entertainment value? How do you explain the brutal murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom and countless other similarly violent crimes perpetrated by African-Americans on a weekly basis?

As for MS-13, you are aware that those gangs were actually formed in the United States in response to African-American gangs and then later exported back to their home countries? If those Salvadorans had not been exposed to African-Americans, MS-13 and other Central American gangs might not even exist!

No matter how much you try to wish it away, any rational analysis of the statistics will show that Blacks are — by a huge margin — the greatest liability on society relative to any other racial group. There’s a reason they tend to be resented the world over in a way that, e.g. Hispanics and Arabs, are not. Perhaps some of that hatred is unjustified, and perhaps there are non-genetic reasons for the consistent dysfunction of the Black race wherever a representative sample is found, but when people express a much greater hostility towards Blacks than towards Hispanics, Arabs, or any other group, it’s not an arbitrary choice to hate Blacks on their part. It’s a hostility based on empirical facts.

As for MS-13, you are aware that those gangs were actually formed in the United States in response to African-American gangs and then later exported back to their home countries? If those Salvadorans had not been exposed to African-Americans, MS-13 and other Central American gangs might not even exist!

This is a lie. MS-13 was formed to combat bullying by the Mexican Mafia, Nortenos and Surenos, also from Mexico.

Yes, the fact I'm talking about cartels that regularly engage in brutal mass murders and have been known to dump masses of bodies in public streets (http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/09/22/dumping-35-bodies-seen-as-challenge-to-zetas-cartel) somehow still means I'm making "vague and unsubstantiated statements."

You don't need to compare african-american to hispanic homicide rates. If you bothered to read my post, which you clearly didn't, and are now going on some bizarre fit about how it wasn't run of the mill "N*GGERS ARE THE WORST" tripe, here's what I said:

"The hispanic murder rate in the US is something like half (or less) that of african-americans, and there are many towns and cities in the US with large or predominantly hispanic populations with low or average homicide rates. I imagine it would be even lower if you excluded illegal immigrants, or considered solely mexican-americans."

The hispanic average IQ in the united states is 89, and is predominantly mexican, at over 60%. Jason Malloy has shown Puerto Ricans, the second largest (and at only 10%) have an IQ of 87-90: http://humanvarieties.org/2014/03/13/hvgiq-puerto-rico-2/

I have never seen an IQ as high as 94 for mexican mestizos. Your study is about 900-something people in total in a nation of over 100 million, and the first page gives no indication of the exact composition of the study.

You cite worldstarhiphop. Okay then- but what do you know about Mexico in similar regards? Can you explain to me why brutal drug cartel leaders are often seen as folk heros in Mexico?

Yeah, Mexican culture has plenty of glorification and celebration of it's worst elements. You cite the 8 year old murder of Christian and Newsom- well, here's a recent story indicating mexican drug cartels kill young children to harvest their organs: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/mexican-cartel-leader-accused-killing-children-harvest-organs-article-1.1725522

So how do you explain these rampant mass executions and complete disregard for human life if african-americans and blacks in general are really the worst? Is it really just due to a 5 point IQ difference that if equal, african-americans would be worse? Or are they worse already? Or we could turn an eye to the cartels and gangs of other latin american countries and their sky high murder rates.

That might be a bad idea though, since mentioning MS-13 has led you to say something completely insane- it's all the fault of african-americans. Because, if the poor people who formed MS-13 hadn't had any contact with n*ggers, it never would have existed in the first place, so you can blame a transnational gang (who's members often like to cover themselves head to toe in hideous tattoos, something not too many other groups do) that's more notorious than most african-american ones on them.

Even if that were somehow true, do you really think it reflects well on whatever segment of the hispanic community that produced MS-13 they'd react in such a way? You're not the first weirdo on the far right I've seen who's praised hispanics in their ethnic conflicts with american-blacks, but I've never seen it this blatant.

It's not anywhere near as rational/empirical/objective as you make it out to be. You make pathetic attempts at downplaying the atrocities and violence of mexican drug cartels and even excuse them or blame african-americans for MS-13. You from the start decried people who are "racist" against non-black groups by daring to say maybe black people aren't "the worst." I think there's far more animus against arabs now and historically than you like to indicate, given how Islam and the countless violent conquests etc. throughout history that have exported it came from Arabia. As for hispanics, there are few hispanics outside of the Americas, and what we see in the US are hardly the worst representatives of latin america. Still, I agree in modern times there is a distinctive hatred of africans compared to most other racial groups (though the roma people have similar hatred in europe), but again, it's not as objectively based as you like to make it out. All I'm really getting from you is "I just hate n*ggers."

What else could explain someone blaming them for MS-13?

helena:

I do think food procurement has an influence. I do think family group structure has an influence on sexual dimorphism. Exactly how and why, I don't know. I think it's more complex and difficult to ascertain than Peter and Sean argue.

Jim:

I personally think Gottfredson is an IQ fetishist and isn't completely objective. My point is that I don't think an average IQ of 85 should prevent a population from forming large, organized crime networks or cartels comparable to what's seen in Mexico. African-americans have indeed had organized crime networks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_organized_crime

I disagree about the Aztecs- they seem to have been pretty unique, and they were despised throughout Mexico. I recently learned however that the Inca also had state-sanctioned cannibalism, but probably not to the extent among the Aztecs, among other things. Nor were they a true civilization, given their lack of a written language.

"Why do some people think it’s okay to make gross, hyperbolic, and sometimes downright inaccurate negative generalizations about non-Black races just to make Blacks seem a little better? Are you Black yourself, by any chance?"

No, I'm not black. I like your question though- it could easily be read as "Why do some people think it's okay to make gross, hyperbolic, and sometimes downright negative generalizations about non-black races just to make nigh- I mean, blacks seem a little better? Saying the same things about blacks isn't gross, hyperbolic, and downright negative or inaccurate, because they're without a doubt the absolute dregs of humanity, so don't you dare say anything like that about Mexicans."

I didn't deny that african-american society has plenty of sociopaths/psychopaths, I just feel there's a distinct sadism and inhumanity among Mexican drug cartels that isn't seen quite to the extent in african-americans, or even africans (unless it's in a full fledged warzone). It's not just mexican drug cartels though- we can also talk about MS-13 or whatever cartels/gangs brutalize Honduras and other latin american countries with incredible murder rates.

I'm aware that the higher intelligence of mexicans likely plays a role in the organization of mexican drug cartels, but the average mexican IQ is like what, around 90? No higher than the low 90's, and that's in part brought up by white Mexicans, so we'd likely be talking 90 for the typical mexican mestizo. A several point difference has big ramifications, but it becomes kind of a stretch to act like an IQ difference of 5 points is that worthwhile when it's still that low, that we'd be seeing cartel violence comparable to mexicans if the african-american IQ was higher. I really don't mind going that direction at all, because if you payed attention to the rest of my post (or anything else I've posted in this thread), it's clear I'm not opposed in the least to talking about biological differences, and I also made the caveat that different populations can have violence/psychopathy differentially concentrated in the population, so I'm not talking about the average mexican vs. the average african-american. It seems like you just homed in on the fact I dared say maybe blacks aren't the worst people in the world and I'm somehow slandering the poor people of the mexican drug cartels.

Can I ask you why some people think it's okay to home in on blacks as the absolute worst humanity has to offer and make gross, hyperbolic, and often downright negative, untrue generalizations about them and downplay anything equally bad or worse on the part of non-blacks, often because their internal thinking boils down to "I just really hate them"?

Can I also ask you why you ignored everything else I said and posted something as dishonest and pathetic as this?

And I don't think it's pure fantasy at all. If you want to look at a historical antecedent, look at who reigned in Mexico before the Spaniards- the Aztecs, one of the most uniquely violent and sadistic civilizations to have ever existed, who engaged in borderline industrial levels of human sacrifice and had state sanctioned cannibalism, who were widely hated throughout Mexico and prompted various states to ally with the Spaniards to vanquish them.

Dipwill, what’s your null hypothesis? Food procurement has no influence on family group structure? Family group structure has no influence on sexual dimorphism?

"Why do some people think it’s okay to make gross, hyperbolic, and sometimes downright inaccurate negative generalizations about non-Black races just to make Blacks seem a little better? Are you Black yourself, by any chance?"

No, I'm not black. I like your question though- it could easily be read as "Why do some people think it's okay to make gross, hyperbolic, and sometimes downright negative generalizations about non-black races just to make nigh- I mean, blacks seem a little better? Saying the same things about blacks isn't gross, hyperbolic, and downright negative or inaccurate, because they're without a doubt the absolute dregs of humanity, so don't you dare say anything like that about Mexicans."

I didn't deny that african-american society has plenty of sociopaths/psychopaths, I just feel there's a distinct sadism and inhumanity among Mexican drug cartels that isn't seen quite to the extent in african-americans, or even africans (unless it's in a full fledged warzone). It's not just mexican drug cartels though- we can also talk about MS-13 or whatever cartels/gangs brutalize Honduras and other latin american countries with incredible murder rates.

I'm aware that the higher intelligence of mexicans likely plays a role in the organization of mexican drug cartels, but the average mexican IQ is like what, around 90? No higher than the low 90's, and that's in part brought up by white Mexicans, so we'd likely be talking 90 for the typical mexican mestizo. A several point difference has big ramifications, but it becomes kind of a stretch to act like an IQ difference of 5 points is that worthwhile when it's still that low, that we'd be seeing cartel violence comparable to mexicans if the african-american IQ was higher. I really don't mind going that direction at all, because if you payed attention to the rest of my post (or anything else I've posted in this thread), it's clear I'm not opposed in the least to talking about biological differences, and I also made the caveat that different populations can have violence/psychopathy differentially concentrated in the population, so I'm not talking about the average mexican vs. the average african-american. It seems like you just homed in on the fact I dared say maybe blacks aren't the worst people in the world and I'm somehow slandering the poor people of the mexican drug cartels.

Can I ask you why some people think it's okay to home in on blacks as the absolute worst humanity has to offer and make gross, hyperbolic, and often downright negative, untrue generalizations about them and downplay anything equally bad or worse on the part of non-blacks, often because their internal thinking boils down to "I just really hate them"?

Can I also ask you why you ignored everything else I said and posted something as dishonest and pathetic as this?

And I don't think it's pure fantasy at all. If you want to look at a historical antecedent, look at who reigned in Mexico before the Spaniards- the Aztecs, one of the most uniquely violent and sadistic civilizations to have ever existed, who engaged in borderline industrial levels of human sacrifice and had state sanctioned cannibalism, who were widely hated throughout Mexico and prompted various states to ally with the Spaniards to vanquish them.

“it becomes a kind of stretch to act like an IQ difference of 5 points is that worthwhile”

According to Linda Gottfredson a person with an IQ less than 75 is essentially unemployable in the present US economy. For African-Americans with an average IQ of 85 that would be 25% of the population while for Mexicans with an average IQ of 90 the corresponding figure would be 16%. So the five point difference can result in a substantial decrease in the economic underclass.

Note that the Aztecs were not unique among Meso-American civilizations which generally tended to be highly militaristic and genocidal.

None of the statistics support your claims, so you're left making vague and unsubstantiated statements like "there’s a distinct sadism and inhumanity among Mexican drug cartels that isn’t seen quite to the extent in african-americans."

For example, we can compare African-American with Hispanic-American crime rates. Unfortunately for you, African-Americans do not look good in this comparison:

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/hispanic.htm

As f0r IQ, according to this study, Mexican Mestizos have an average IQ of 94 while White Mexicans have an average IQ of 98:

So once again, your claims about their intelligence is correct. Compare those numbers to the pathetic African-American IQ of 85. That's almost 2/3SD below the IQ of Mexican Mestizos.

And if you deny that there's a distinct sadism in African-American culture that rivals or surpasses anything found in Mexico, then how do you explain the popularity of sites like WorldStarHipHop among Blacks? What other group besides Blacks watches those kinds of videos for their entertainment value? How do you explain the brutal murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom and countless other similarly violent crimes perpetrated by African-Americans on a weekly basis?

As for MS-13, you are aware that those gangs were actually formed in the United States in response to African-American gangs and then later exported back to their home countries? If those Salvadorans had not been exposed to African-Americans, MS-13 and other Central American gangs might not even exist!

No matter how much you try to wish it away, any rational analysis of the statistics will show that Blacks are -- by a huge margin -- the greatest liability on society relative to any other racial group. There's a reason they tend to be resented the world over in a way that, e.g. Hispanics and Arabs, are not. Perhaps some of that hatred is unjustified, and perhaps there are non-genetic reasons for the consistent dysfunction of the Black race wherever a representative sample is found, but when people express a much greater hostility towards Blacks than towards Hispanics, Arabs, or any other group, it's not an arbitrary choice to hate Blacks on their part. It's a hostility based on empirical facts.

As for MS-13, you are aware that those gangs were actually formed in the United States in response to African-American gangs and then later exported back to their home countries? If those Salvadorans had not been exposed to African-Americans, MS-13 and other Central American gangs might not even exist!

This is a lie. MS-13 was formed to combat bullying by the Mexican Mafia, Nortenos and Surenos, also from Mexico.

The Mara Salvatrucha gang originated in Los Angeles, set up in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants in the city's Pico-Union neighborhood who immigrated to the United States after the Central American civil wars of the 1980s.[8][9]

Originally, the gang's main purpose was to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other, more established gangs of Los Angeles, who were predominantly composed of Mexicans and African-Americans.[10]

As for MS-13, you are aware that those gangs were actually formed in the United States in response to African-American gangs and then later exported back to their home countries? If those Salvadorans had not been exposed to African-Americans, MS-13 and other Central American gangs might not even exist!

This is a lie. MS-13 was formed to combat bullying by the Mexican Mafia, Nortenos and Surenos, also from Mexico.

The Mara Salvatrucha gang originated in Los Angeles, set up in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants in the city’s Pico-Union neighborhood who immigrated to the United States after the Central American civil wars of the 1980s.[8][9]

Originally, the gang’s main purpose was to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other, more established gangs of Los Angeles, who were predominantly composed of Mexicans and African-Americans.[10]

Originally, the gang’s main purpose was to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other, more established gangs of Los Angeles, who were predominantly composed of Mexicans and African-</blockquo

Poor semantics by the writer, other gangs in LA were comprised of Mexicans and African-Americans, but in the East LA, East Hollywood areas in which the Salvadoreans settled were Mexican Mafia turf, very few blacks around.

Eventually they joined the Mexican Cartel which is what the 13 stands for.

Oxford in one year had a murder rate of over 100/100k in one year in the 1300′s:

The estimate of 20 to 40 homicides per year per 100,000 is for England in the late Middle Ages, c. 1500. The rates seem to increase as we go farther back in time, but it’s hard to tell, given the incompleteness of the data. But let’s say the rate was 100 homicides per 100,000 in the 1300s. That’s still much lower than the rates of 660 to 690 per 100,000 in the highlands of New Guinea.

I’ve long found the usage of homicide rates for very small, tribal populations incredibly misleading in this manner. You cannot extrapolate the significance of murders and war in small tribal bands/villages (and war is where most deaths in them occur)

In a modern society, war means being sent to a distant land and being told to fire your gun at an enemy you scarcely see and scarcely know. It’s State-organized violence, and not personal violence.

In the highlands of New Guinea, it’s more like a brawl after an English soccer match where you get to kill the other guy and take his girlfriend (and keep her along with the other girlfriends you’ve taken over the years). It’s all about sex, being with other young guys, and showing off to them.

And that’s very comparable to the kind of violence we now see among “youths.”

I’ve seen little indication settled, more modern peoples in Papua New Guinea are quite this bad.

The homicide rate of the Aka is very low for a foraging people (approximately .003%) though still higher than the United States (approximately .00005% in 2008).

I agree. The Aka are hunter-gatherers with a low polygyny rate (less than 10%) and a low level of male-male competition for mates. This was the point of the study by Butovskaya et al. (2015). The monogamous Hadza (likewise hunter-gatherers) are much less aggressive than the polygynous Datoga.

The link between modern policing and crime is very debatable

It depends on the population. The Amish don’t need policing because parents and neighbors enforce norms of correct behavior. Religion also inculcates fear of “sinful” behavior. Finally, the Amish have good impulse control, strong future orientation, and a high capacity to internalize universal moral rules, i.e., if it’s wrong for someone to do something bad to me, it’s also wrong for me to do the same thing to someone else. (Some folks have trouble internalizing that rule).

Other people need policing because external controls on behavior are weak or nonexistent. This is often the case with children raised in single-parent households in an anonymous, socially atomized environment. Some people also have weak internal controls.

It’s silly to say that policing has no effect on crime. One can argue that it’s often unnecessary because parental/community surveillance is doing its job and because the community is composed of people who can police their own behavior.

It would be helpful if you could properly compare murder rates in african countries and parse them from deaths due to worse access to modern medical care.

If we go back to 1900, antibiotics were not available and doctors probably killed more people than they saved. Yet the U.S. homicide rate was much lower then than it is now, despite the improvements in medical care.

Religion does influence behavior, including crime. When French Canadians deserted the Church en masse in the early 1960s, there was a sharp fall in the birth rate, a sharp rise in the divorce rate, and an increase in domestic violence.

The African American community went through a similar change in the early 1960s. Previously, the churches had a strong influence on family and community through external controls (shaming, peer pressure, community surveillance) and internal controls (fear of God, guilt). Weakening of religion was similar among Euro Americans, but the effects were much more catastrophic for African Americans.

atrocities against civilians, POW’s etc. on the part of pre-modern societies can be particularly indicative of their propensity to violence in the social and public spheres.

Yes, that’s State-organized violence. The State can kill far more people than can individuals acting on their own.

you are allowing the drug trade as being the reason for the incredible homicides in latin america. I don’t deny that this is why there has been a recent spike, but homicide rates were very high even before this spike, and you have to consider how many murders and other crimes go unreported.

Underreporting is probably a bigger factor in sub-Saharan Africa.

Just about any quote would be relevant, especially to your claim that homicide in africa is a “very different profile”,

It wasn’t my claim. It was the conclusion of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Read the report.

In Venezuela, which is overwhelmingly mestizo, unlike heavily black/mulatto Brazil

The two countries have about the same ethnic makeup. A study found that the average Venezuelan is 60% European, 23% indigenous, and 16% African. Brazil has a higher African component, about 25% I believe.

The hispanic murder rate in the US is something like half (or less) that of african-americans

Murder rates in small, primitive tribal contexts are not comparable or extrapolable to more complex contexts. You cannot expect whatsoever a "murder rate" of over 600 to be literally sustained beyond the setting of a stone age tribal one, or that it's even accurate to think of that as a murder rate comparable to anything in a more complex society. There are far fewer people in those papuan societies, and any murder (or more accurately, death in war) in a small setting like that is going to register in an absolute sense as a very high murder rate. At the same time, the mindset and dynamics behind "murder" are not the same in an absolute sense compared to modern ones. This is what led Pinker (and seemingly you) to extrapolate these in a literal sense and act like one murder in a group of small tribal bands is truly comparable to something like mass murder in a more advanced setting, among other things. If one person commits a murder in a band of 100 people, that murder rate would register as 100/100k. In terms of proportions, that person is a mass murderer. But it's very doubtful that person is as sociopathic as an actual mass murderer and they'd have the capacity to commit it in a bigger population, or that many people would see them as comparable to one. That is what we're talking about when we look at killings in stone age tribal villages.

Imagine a scenario in which a few hundred people of european descent were stranded on a deserted island. They form a small society. Over time, a few get killed here and there over personal quarrels. They in essence aren't that different from what is seen back in their home countries, which all have low murder rates. But given the small population and the proportion of murders, they would register a murder rate radically higher. You could come up with other similar examples, like a village of a few hundred or so where from time to time a few people get murdered. Owing to the small population, the murder rate would be registered as very high, but you can't expect this to be sustained in the same sense beyond this setting or that the dynamics of violence/sociopathy/etc. can be magnified so readily.

Your comparison with how people in the new guinea highlands engage in war is kind of disingenuous. Any tribal war for people that primitive with such small populations is going to register high "murder" rates, and would often manifest with what are in reality very petty reasons.

Papua New Guinea is a very poor, undeveloped country, and even the parts exposed to modernity are usually backwards. Government control and influence is marginal and people often have few modern amenities. Barring them returning to a purely stone age context with minimal agriculture, you really think a literal murder rate like that would be widely seen if those minor controls dissolved, or that it would increase much in an absolute sense at all?

The point about the pygmies was that I do not think, given what has been documented about them behavior wise, that murder rate (which would probably be higher than african-americans) would literally sustain itself in a larger, more complex setting. I should have clarified this a bit more aside from the example with women, though. There are settled pygmy communities where people have some modern amenities and the people number in the thousands, and I doubt the murder rate is literally as high, or high at all. At the same time, the extreme gender equality likely hasn't sustained itself and there are more than likely a few women who over time have been murdered by men. The mechanisms and dynamics behind behaviors in small, primitive tribal contexts are usually very different from those of people in larger, more complex settings. But through all this, I don't really think it's monogamy why the pygmies are so non-violent.

I didn't say modern police can't deter crime. However, the extent of how much it can deter it is. At an extreme, it can prevent a remarkable amount of crime if it's completely totalitarian and all encompassing and targets any slight with extreme repercussions (like what you see in North Korea), but beyond that, it isn't as clear. Tight policing can variously exacerbate crime, and what would be helpful is if you could compare the african-american murder rate before it peaked and it led to a larger incarceration that ultimately lowered the rate to now. It mainly peaked when drug use was in full-swing (an exception you again only allowed for latin americans), similar to what is seen in latin america, but is there any indication it was really that higher before modern policing and other modern controls?

You make a good point about the murder rate in the US before modern medical technology, but I'm not entirely convinced. I've seen other data and arguments to indicate murder rates would be higher without modern technology (and this is the case in third world countries.)

I see what you mean about the influence of the church, but you were claiming even now, they are strong contingencies against higher murder rates, and I don't think that's very accurate.

"Yes, that’s State-organized violence. The State can kill far more people than can individuals acting on their own."

Uh.... the people who kill POW's, civilians, engage in brutal torture etc. are still individual soldiers and such. You continually act like the violence we've seen in the past during war or various states of it, where atrocities and such were committed at far greater frequencies than we see now, can be distinctively parsed from behavior in the regular social sphere, that they aren't indicative of behavior outside of war. There is no reason to believe this.

I think it's debatable if underreporting is on the whole worse. I have seen murder statistics far african countries that are unbelievably low, but other times much higher ones. On the other hand, international agencies have routinely ranked various latin american countries as among the most dangerous in the world outside of warzones, moreso than many african ones, in spite of whatever underreporting there is. We get higher recorded murder rates than many african countries in places like Honduras, with plenty of indication there are heavily underreported, even before the spikes in the drug trade.

I'm not denying what the UN report said. My point is that the presence of organized crime networks means male violence is concentrated in different realms, and we'd very likely see far higher violence against women without them. We already see plenty even with their presence.

Venezuela and Brazil do not in any way have similar makeups. The african Venezuelan might have significant african ancestry, but it's not comparable to Brazil. The black ancestry is much more pervasive and widespread in Brazil, and heavily african individuals are much more common. The "black" population in Venezuela is under 3%. Brazilians have very little amerind ancestry, and the amerind population is very small and mostly found in the rainforest regions.

About"African component" in Brazil. You are talking about genetic composition of average Brazilian (trirracial) and average Venezuelan or about demographic composition of Brazilian and Venezuelan populations???

By Brazilian census 45% of population are self declared mulattos/pardos/mamelucos/cafuzos and 8% are self declared blacks.

Venezuela seems have similar % of whites as Mexico but with greater % of mestizo population with greater mix between white and black genes.

In terms of genetic makeup more than 80% of Brazilian people have some "subsaharian genes".

None of the statistics support your claims, so you're left making vague and unsubstantiated statements like "there’s a distinct sadism and inhumanity among Mexican drug cartels that isn’t seen quite to the extent in african-americans."

For example, we can compare African-American with Hispanic-American crime rates. Unfortunately for you, African-Americans do not look good in this comparison:

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/hispanic.htm

As f0r IQ, according to this study, Mexican Mestizos have an average IQ of 94 while White Mexicans have an average IQ of 98:

So once again, your claims about their intelligence is correct. Compare those numbers to the pathetic African-American IQ of 85. That's almost 2/3SD below the IQ of Mexican Mestizos.

And if you deny that there's a distinct sadism in African-American culture that rivals or surpasses anything found in Mexico, then how do you explain the popularity of sites like WorldStarHipHop among Blacks? What other group besides Blacks watches those kinds of videos for their entertainment value? How do you explain the brutal murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom and countless other similarly violent crimes perpetrated by African-Americans on a weekly basis?

As for MS-13, you are aware that those gangs were actually formed in the United States in response to African-American gangs and then later exported back to their home countries? If those Salvadorans had not been exposed to African-Americans, MS-13 and other Central American gangs might not even exist!

No matter how much you try to wish it away, any rational analysis of the statistics will show that Blacks are -- by a huge margin -- the greatest liability on society relative to any other racial group. There's a reason they tend to be resented the world over in a way that, e.g. Hispanics and Arabs, are not. Perhaps some of that hatred is unjustified, and perhaps there are non-genetic reasons for the consistent dysfunction of the Black race wherever a representative sample is found, but when people express a much greater hostility towards Blacks than towards Hispanics, Arabs, or any other group, it's not an arbitrary choice to hate Blacks on their part. It's a hostility based on empirical facts.

You don’t need to compare african-american to hispanic homicide rates. If you bothered to read my post, which you clearly didn’t, and are now going on some bizarre fit about how it wasn’t run of the mill “N*GGERS ARE THE WORST” tripe, here’s what I said:

“The hispanic murder rate in the US is something like half (or less) that of african-americans, and there are many towns and cities in the US with large or predominantly hispanic populations with low or average homicide rates. I imagine it would be even lower if you excluded illegal immigrants, or considered solely mexican-americans.”

I have never seen an IQ as high as 94 for mexican mestizos. Your study is about 900-something people in total in a nation of over 100 million, and the first page gives no indication of the exact composition of the study.

You cite worldstarhiphop. Okay then- but what do you know about Mexico in similar regards? Can you explain to me why brutal drug cartel leaders are often seen as folk heros in Mexico?

So how do you explain these rampant mass executions and complete disregard for human life if african-americans and blacks in general are really the worst? Is it really just due to a 5 point IQ difference that if equal, african-americans would be worse? Or are they worse already? Or we could turn an eye to the cartels and gangs of other latin american countries and their sky high murder rates.

That might be a bad idea though, since mentioning MS-13 has led you to say something completely insane- it’s all the fault of african-americans. Because, if the poor people who formed MS-13 hadn’t had any contact with n*ggers, it never would have existed in the first place, so you can blame a transnational gang (who’s members often like to cover themselves head to toe in hideous tattoos, something not too many other groups do) that’s more notorious than most african-american ones on them.

Even if that were somehow true, do you really think it reflects well on whatever segment of the hispanic community that produced MS-13 they’d react in such a way? You’re not the first weirdo on the far right I’ve seen who’s praised hispanics in their ethnic conflicts with american-blacks, but I’ve never seen it this blatant.

It’s not anywhere near as rational/empirical/objective as you make it out to be. You make pathetic attempts at downplaying the atrocities and violence of mexican drug cartels and even excuse them or blame african-americans for MS-13. You from the start decried people who are “racist” against non-black groups by daring to say maybe black people aren’t “the worst.” I think there’s far more animus against arabs now and historically than you like to indicate, given how Islam and the countless violent conquests etc. throughout history that have exported it came from Arabia. As for hispanics, there are few hispanics outside of the Americas, and what we see in the US are hardly the worst representatives of latin america. Still, I agree in modern times there is a distinctive hatred of africans compared to most other racial groups (though the roma people have similar hatred in europe), but again, it’s not as objectively based as you like to make it out. All I’m really getting from you is “I just hate n*ggers.”

What else could explain someone blaming them for MS-13?

helena:

I do think food procurement has an influence. I do think family group structure has an influence on sexual dimorphism. Exactly how and why, I don’t know. I think it’s more complex and difficult to ascertain than Peter and Sean argue.

Jim:

I personally think Gottfredson is an IQ fetishist and isn’t completely objective. My point is that I don’t think an average IQ of 85 should prevent a population from forming large, organized crime networks or cartels comparable to what’s seen in Mexico. African-americans have indeed had organized crime networks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_organized_crime

I disagree about the Aztecs- they seem to have been pretty unique, and they were despised throughout Mexico. I recently learned however that the Inca also had state-sanctioned cannibalism, but probably not to the extent among the Aztecs, among other things. Nor were they a true civilization, given their lack of a written language.

''I have never seen an IQ as high as 94 for mexican mestizos. Your study is about 900-something people in total in a nation of over 100 million, and the first page gives no indication of the exact composition of the study.''

Immigrants from nearby regions tend to be dysgenic by nature and specially if have ''facilitations'' as jobs, cultural bridges (as greater diaspora in this country OR same language, a common ''history'')

More distant, more social differences between the two countries, more difficult will be to immigrate, more selected will tend to be.

There's no way you're not Black or part Black, btw. There's no other incentive for someone to spend so much time (as a perusal of your posting history reveals) arguing "b-b-but Blacks aren't the worst! Stop focusing so much on Blacks, guys!"

I won't bother defending the behavior of Mexican cartels or the morons who celebrate them, but we're comparing races.I'll point out that in order to make your case, you need to focus on Mexico, a handful of small Central American countries, as well as countries with significant Black admixture (Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil). Can you show me similarly widespread sociopathic behavior currently occurring in heavily mestizo and/or indio countries such as Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, etc.?

That's the major difference. Brutal behavior among Blacks is not limited to America. I could easily find similar stories of brutal murders and rapes from South Africa, Uganda, the Congo, Somalia, Brazil, and so on. Even Blacks in Canada, who tend to be positively selected and more educated than Blacks elsewhere, commit a disproportionate amount of crimes relative to their population share.

I'll also note that Hispanic-American immigrants tend to be from the less educated and lower class segments of their countries. Many of them arrive here without a high school diploma. By no means are they a positively selected elite. And yet they and their children still have a drastically lower crime rates than African-Americans. I mean, it's not even close. I noticed you conveniently chose to ignore La Griffe's analysis. Did it hurt your feelings to see just how much more violent and criminal your precious African-Americans are compared to the Hispanics you're trying to shift focus on?

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/hispanic.htm

And many people are aware of these statistics, even if on a gut level. They know that Blacks are much more likely to make a neighborhood insufferable than any other group. It's not just crime either, but the way Blacks often behave in general once they're concentrated in an area. That's why Blacks are the most loathed race in the world, and that's what you can't bring yourself to admit. Once again, it's not some arbitrary decision to hate Blacks the most.

I have never seen an IQ as high as 94 for mexican mestizos. Your study is about 900-something people in total in a nation of over 100 million, and the first page gives no indication of the exact composition of the study.

Well, I just showed you one. You're complaining about a study with a sample size of 900 people? Do you know how statistics works? An N value of 900 is fairly robust. Many IQ studies have smaller sample sizes. (Puerto Ricans also have significant Black ancestry, btw, much higher than the average Mexican.)

And the fact is that Blacks have always been considered at the bottom of the racial totem pole. It's not only in modern times that this is the case. For example, here is Thomas Jefferson writing about them:

A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course.

Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad. The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture.

The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life. We know that among the Romans, about the Augustan age especially, the condition of their slaves was much more deplorable than that of the blacks on the continent of America. The two sexes were confined in separate apartments, because to raise a child cost the master more than to buy one. Cato, for a very restricted indulgence to his slaves in this particular, took from them a certain price. But in this country the slaves multiply as fast as the free inhabitants. Their situation and manners place the commerce between the two sexes almost without restraint.

And here is Francisco García Calderón, from his Latin America: Its Rise and Progress:

One may say that the admixture of the prevailing strains with black blood has been disastrous for these democracies. In applying John Stuart Mill's law of concomitant variations to the development of Spanish America one may determine a necessary relation between the numerical proportion of negroes and the intensity of civilisation. Wealth increases and internal order is greater in the Argentine, Uruguay, and Chile, and it is precisely in these countries that the proportion of negroes has always been low ; they have disappeared in the admixture of European races. In Cuba, San Domingo, and some of the republics of Central America, and certain of the States of the Brazilial Confederation, where the children of slaves constitute the greater portion of the population, internal disorders are continual. A black republic, Haiti, demonstrates by its revolutionary history the political incapacity of the negro race. The mulatto and the zambo are the true American hybrids. D'Orbigny believed the mestizo to be superior to the descendants of the Africans imported as slaves ; Burmeister is of opinion that in the mulatto the characteristics of the negro are predominant. Ayarragaray states that the children born of the union of negroes with zambos or natives are in general inferior to their parents, as much in intelligence as in physical energy. The inferior elements of the races which unite are evidently combined in their offspring. It is observed also that both in the mulattos and the zambos certain internal contraditions may be noted ; their will is weak and uncertain, and is dominated by instinct and gross and violent passions. Weakness of character corresponds with a turgid intelligence, incapable of profound analysis, or method, or general ideas, and a certain oratorical extravagance, a pompous rhetoric. The mulatto loves luxury and extravagance ; he is servile, and lacks moral feeling. The invasion of negroes affected all the Iberian colonies, where, to replace the outrageously exploited Indian, African slaves were imported by the ingenuous evangelists of the time. In Brazil, Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, and Peru this caste forms a high proportion of the total population. In Brazil 15 per cent, of the population is composed of negroes, without counting the immense number of mulattos and zambos. Bahia is half an African city. In Rio de Janiero the negroes of pure blood abound. In Panama the full-blooded Africans form 10 per cent, of the population. Between 1759 and 1803 642,000 negroes entered Brazil; between 1792 and 1810 Cuba received 89,000. These figures prove the formidable influence of the former slaves in modern America. But they are revenged for their enslavement in that their blood is mingled with that of their masters.

Incapable of order and self-government, they are a factor of anarchy ; every species of vain outer show attracts them sonorous phraseology and ostentation. They make a show of an official function, a university title, or an academic diploma. As the Indian could not work in the tropics black immigration was directed principally upon those regions, and the enervating climate, the indiscipline of the mulatto, and the weakness of the white element have contributed to the decadence of the Equatorial nations.

The mulatto is more despised than the mestizo because he often shows the abjectness of the slave and the indecision of the hybrid ; he is at once servile and arrogant, envious and ambitious. His violent desire to mount to a higher social rank, to acquire wealth, power, and display, is, as Sefior Bunge very justly remarks, a " hyperaesthesia of arrivism."

The zambos have created nothing in America. On the other hand, the robust mestizo populations, the Mamelucos of Brazil, the Cholos of Peru and Bolivia, the Rotos of Chile, descendants of Spaniards and the Guarani Indians, are distinguished by their pride and virility. Instability, apathy, degeneration all the signs of exhausted race are encountered far more frequently in the mulatto than in the mestizo.

And if you want one more example of the unique prejudice directed towards Blacks a century ago, here's H.P. Lovecraft:

Various race-stocks differ in inclinations & aptitudes, but of all of them I consider only the negro & australoid biologically inferior. Against these two a rigid colour-line ought to exist.

In dealing with these two black races, there is only one sound attitude for any other race (be it Indian, Malay, Polynesian, or Mongolian) to take–& that is to prevent admixture as completely & determinedly as it can be prevented, through the establishment of a colour-line & the rigid forcing of all mixed offspring below that line. I am in accord with the most vehement & vociferous Alabaman or Mississippian on that point, & it will be found that most Northerners react similarly when it comes to a practical showdown, no matter how much abstract equalitarian nonsense they may spout as a result of the abolitionist tradition inherited from the 1850’s. If a Russian-inspired communist dictatorship ever tried to force negro equality on the U. S., there is scant question but that the descendants of Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, & William Lloyd Garrison would stand side by side with those of Jefferson Davis & John C. Calhoun in fighting its ultimate implications to the death.

Members of one race can fit into another only through the complete eradication of their own background-influences–& even then the adjustment will always remain uneasy & imperfect if the newcomer’s physical aspect forms a constant reminder of his outside origin. Therefore it is wise to discourage all mixtures of sharply differentiated races—though the colour-line does not need to be drawn as strictly as in the case of the negro, since we know that a dash or two of Mongolian or Indian or Hindoo or some such blood will not actually injure a white stock biologically. John Randolph of Roanoke was none the worse off for having the blood of Pocahontas in his veins, nor does any Finn or Hungarian feel like a mongrel because his stock has a remote & now almost forgotten Mongoloid strain. With the high-grade alien races we can adopt a policy of flexible common-sense—discouraging mixture whenever we can, but not clamping down the bars so ruthlessly against every individual of slightly mixed ancestry.

The Andean cultures don't seem to have been quite as bloodthirsty as Meso-American cultures. But very high levels of war together with human sacrifice and cannibalism are very common in Meso-American cultures. The Aztecs were not that unique in that regard.

In the ancient Near East the general purpose of war was to secure tribute and taxes from conquered areas. In Meso-America it often seems as if sheer genocide was the purpose of war.

The Mara Salvatrucha gang originated in Los Angeles, set up in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants in the city's Pico-Union neighborhood who immigrated to the United States after the Central American civil wars of the 1980s.[8][9]

Originally, the gang's main purpose was to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other, more established gangs of Los Angeles, who were predominantly composed of Mexicans and African-Americans.[10]

Oxford in one year had a murder rate of over 100/100k in one year in the 1300′s:

The estimate of 20 to 40 homicides per year per 100,000 is for England in the late Middle Ages, c. 1500. The rates seem to increase as we go farther back in time, but it's hard to tell, given the incompleteness of the data. But let's say the rate was 100 homicides per 100,000 in the 1300s. That's still much lower than the rates of 660 to 690 per 100,000 in the highlands of New Guinea.

I’ve long found the usage of homicide rates for very small, tribal populations incredibly misleading in this manner. You cannot extrapolate the significance of murders and war in small tribal bands/villages (and war is where most deaths in them occur)

In a modern society, war means being sent to a distant land and being told to fire your gun at an enemy you scarcely see and scarcely know. It's State-organized violence, and not personal violence.

In the highlands of New Guinea, it's more like a brawl after an English soccer match where you get to kill the other guy and take his girlfriend (and keep her along with the other girlfriends you've taken over the years). It's all about sex, being with other young guys, and showing off to them.

And that's very comparable to the kind of violence we now see among "youths."

I’ve seen little indication settled, more modern peoples in Papua New Guinea are quite this bad.

The homicide rate of the Aka is very low for a foraging people (approximately .003%) though still higher than the United States (approximately .00005% in 2008).

I agree. The Aka are hunter-gatherers with a low polygyny rate (less than 10%) and a low level of male-male competition for mates. This was the point of the study by Butovskaya et al. (2015). The monogamous Hadza (likewise hunter-gatherers) are much less aggressive than the polygynous Datoga.

The link between modern policing and crime is very debatable

It depends on the population. The Amish don't need policing because parents and neighbors enforce norms of correct behavior. Religion also inculcates fear of "sinful" behavior. Finally, the Amish have good impulse control, strong future orientation, and a high capacity to internalize universal moral rules, i.e., if it's wrong for someone to do something bad to me, it's also wrong for me to do the same thing to someone else. (Some folks have trouble internalizing that rule).

Other people need policing because external controls on behavior are weak or nonexistent. This is often the case with children raised in single-parent households in an anonymous, socially atomized environment. Some people also have weak internal controls.

It's silly to say that policing has no effect on crime. One can argue that it's often unnecessary because parental/community surveillance is doing its job and because the community is composed of people who can police their own behavior.

It would be helpful if you could properly compare murder rates in african countries and parse them from deaths due to worse access to modern medical care.

If we go back to 1900, antibiotics were not available and doctors probably killed more people than they saved. Yet the U.S. homicide rate was much lower then than it is now, despite the improvements in medical care.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/17/rick_nevin_murder_statistics_safest_year_ever.html

And churches and church-sponsored youth groups? Really?

Religion does influence behavior, including crime. When French Canadians deserted the Church en masse in the early 1960s, there was a sharp fall in the birth rate, a sharp rise in the divorce rate, and an increase in domestic violence.

The African American community went through a similar change in the early 1960s. Previously, the churches had a strong influence on family and community through external controls (shaming, peer pressure, community surveillance) and internal controls (fear of God, guilt). Weakening of religion was similar among Euro Americans, but the effects were much more catastrophic for African Americans.

atrocities against civilians, POW’s etc. on the part of pre-modern societies can be particularly indicative of their propensity to violence in the social and public spheres.

Yes, that's State-organized violence. The State can kill far more people than can individuals acting on their own.

you are allowing the drug trade as being the reason for the incredible homicides in latin america. I don’t deny that this is why there has been a recent spike, but homicide rates were very high even before this spike, and you have to consider how many murders and other crimes go unreported.

Underreporting is probably a bigger factor in sub-Saharan Africa.

Just about any quote would be relevant, especially to your claim that homicide in africa is a “very different profile”,

It wasn't my claim. It was the conclusion of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Read the report.

In Venezuela, which is overwhelmingly mestizo, unlike heavily black/mulatto Brazil

The two countries have about the same ethnic makeup. A study found that the average Venezuelan is 60% European, 23% indigenous, and 16% African. Brazil has a higher African component, about 25% I believe.

The hispanic murder rate in the US is something like half (or less) that of african-americans

Less.

Murder rates in small, primitive tribal contexts are not comparable or extrapolable to more complex contexts. You cannot expect whatsoever a “murder rate” of over 600 to be literally sustained beyond the setting of a stone age tribal one, or that it’s even accurate to think of that as a murder rate comparable to anything in a more complex society. There are far fewer people in those papuan societies, and any murder (or more accurately, death in war) in a small setting like that is going to register in an absolute sense as a very high murder rate. At the same time, the mindset and dynamics behind “murder” are not the same in an absolute sense compared to modern ones. This is what led Pinker (and seemingly you) to extrapolate these in a literal sense and act like one murder in a group of small tribal bands is truly comparable to something like mass murder in a more advanced setting, among other things. If one person commits a murder in a band of 100 people, that murder rate would register as 100/100k. In terms of proportions, that person is a mass murderer. But it’s very doubtful that person is as sociopathic as an actual mass murderer and they’d have the capacity to commit it in a bigger population, or that many people would see them as comparable to one. That is what we’re talking about when we look at killings in stone age tribal villages.

Imagine a scenario in which a few hundred people of european descent were stranded on a deserted island. They form a small society. Over time, a few get killed here and there over personal quarrels. They in essence aren’t that different from what is seen back in their home countries, which all have low murder rates. But given the small population and the proportion of murders, they would register a murder rate radically higher. You could come up with other similar examples, like a village of a few hundred or so where from time to time a few people get murdered. Owing to the small population, the murder rate would be registered as very high, but you can’t expect this to be sustained in the same sense beyond this setting or that the dynamics of violence/sociopathy/etc. can be magnified so readily.

Your comparison with how people in the new guinea highlands engage in war is kind of disingenuous. Any tribal war for people that primitive with such small populations is going to register high “murder” rates, and would often manifest with what are in reality very petty reasons.

Papua New Guinea is a very poor, undeveloped country, and even the parts exposed to modernity are usually backwards. Government control and influence is marginal and people often have few modern amenities. Barring them returning to a purely stone age context with minimal agriculture, you really think a literal murder rate like that would be widely seen if those minor controls dissolved, or that it would increase much in an absolute sense at all?

The point about the pygmies was that I do not think, given what has been documented about them behavior wise, that murder rate (which would probably be higher than african-americans) would literally sustain itself in a larger, more complex setting. I should have clarified this a bit more aside from the example with women, though. There are settled pygmy communities where people have some modern amenities and the people number in the thousands, and I doubt the murder rate is literally as high, or high at all. At the same time, the extreme gender equality likely hasn’t sustained itself and there are more than likely a few women who over time have been murdered by men. The mechanisms and dynamics behind behaviors in small, primitive tribal contexts are usually very different from those of people in larger, more complex settings. But through all this, I don’t really think it’s monogamy why the pygmies are so non-violent.

I didn’t say modern police can’t deter crime. However, the extent of how much it can deter it is. At an extreme, it can prevent a remarkable amount of crime if it’s completely totalitarian and all encompassing and targets any slight with extreme repercussions (like what you see in North Korea), but beyond that, it isn’t as clear. Tight policing can variously exacerbate crime, and what would be helpful is if you could compare the african-american murder rate before it peaked and it led to a larger incarceration that ultimately lowered the rate to now. It mainly peaked when drug use was in full-swing (an exception you again only allowed for latin americans), similar to what is seen in latin america, but is there any indication it was really that higher before modern policing and other modern controls?

You make a good point about the murder rate in the US before modern medical technology, but I’m not entirely convinced. I’ve seen other data and arguments to indicate murder rates would be higher without modern technology (and this is the case in third world countries.)

I see what you mean about the influence of the church, but you were claiming even now, they are strong contingencies against higher murder rates, and I don’t think that’s very accurate.

“Yes, that’s State-organized violence. The State can kill far more people than can individuals acting on their own.”

Uh…. the people who kill POW’s, civilians, engage in brutal torture etc. are still individual soldiers and such. You continually act like the violence we’ve seen in the past during war or various states of it, where atrocities and such were committed at far greater frequencies than we see now, can be distinctively parsed from behavior in the regular social sphere, that they aren’t indicative of behavior outside of war. There is no reason to believe this.

I think it’s debatable if underreporting is on the whole worse. I have seen murder statistics far african countries that are unbelievably low, but other times much higher ones. On the other hand, international agencies have routinely ranked various latin american countries as among the most dangerous in the world outside of warzones, moreso than many african ones, in spite of whatever underreporting there is. We get higher recorded murder rates than many african countries in places like Honduras, with plenty of indication there are heavily underreported, even before the spikes in the drug trade.

I’m not denying what the UN report said. My point is that the presence of organized crime networks means male violence is concentrated in different realms, and we’d very likely see far higher violence against women without them. We already see plenty even with their presence.

Venezuela and Brazil do not in any way have similar makeups. The african Venezuelan might have significant african ancestry, but it’s not comparable to Brazil. The black ancestry is much more pervasive and widespread in Brazil, and heavily african individuals are much more common. The “black” population in Venezuela is under 3%. Brazilians have very little amerind ancestry, and the amerind population is very small and mostly found in the rainforest regions.

''Murder rates in small, primitive tribal contexts are not comparable or extrapolable to more complex contexts. You cannot expect whatsoever a “murder rate” of over 600 to be literally sustained beyond the setting of a stone age tribal one, or that it’s even accurate to think of that as a murder rate comparable to anything in a more complex society. There are far fewer people in those papuan societies, and any murder (or more accurately, death in war) in a small setting like that is going to register in an absolute sense as a very high murder rate. At the same time, the mindset and dynamics behind “murder” are not the same in an absolute sense compared to modern ones. This is what led Pinker (and seemingly you) to extrapolate these in a literal sense and act like one murder in a group of small tribal bands is truly comparable to something like mass murder in a more advanced setting, among other things. If one person commits a murder in a band of 100 people, that murder rate would register as 100/100k. In terms of proportions, that person is a mass murderer. But it’s very doubtful that person is as sociopathic as an actual mass murderer and they’d have the capacity to commit it in a bigger population, or that many people would see them as comparable to one. That is what we’re talking about when we look at killings in stone age tribal villages.''

Depending on the size of the population, yes, we can compare with tribes with societies. Of course, dozens of people, in fact, will inflate the results of proportion of murderers. But that does not mean it's impossible to compare, even in these groups. Only if it is applied a statistical and historical/cultural CORRECT analysis.

If afro-caribbeans and (most) afro-americans have little genetic differences, than environmental factors, as live in superpower as US or in Bahamas, it will can have a impact (is easy to live in a country like Bahamas). But, what i already see superficially about it is that caribbean countries with higher % of blacks, also have higher % of crime rates.

"Your comparison with how people in the new guinea highlands engage in war is kind of disingenuous. Any tribal war for people that primitive with such small populations is going to register high “murder” rates, and would often manifest with what are in reality very petty reasons."

Says the guy who brought up a 100/100000 murder rate in a single year in Oxford when it had 2000 people. IOW, two murders.

Yes, the fact I'm talking about cartels that regularly engage in brutal mass murders and have been known to dump masses of bodies in public streets (http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/09/22/dumping-35-bodies-seen-as-challenge-to-zetas-cartel) somehow still means I'm making "vague and unsubstantiated statements."

You don't need to compare african-american to hispanic homicide rates. If you bothered to read my post, which you clearly didn't, and are now going on some bizarre fit about how it wasn't run of the mill "N*GGERS ARE THE WORST" tripe, here's what I said:

"The hispanic murder rate in the US is something like half (or less) that of african-americans, and there are many towns and cities in the US with large or predominantly hispanic populations with low or average homicide rates. I imagine it would be even lower if you excluded illegal immigrants, or considered solely mexican-americans."

The hispanic average IQ in the united states is 89, and is predominantly mexican, at over 60%. Jason Malloy has shown Puerto Ricans, the second largest (and at only 10%) have an IQ of 87-90: http://humanvarieties.org/2014/03/13/hvgiq-puerto-rico-2/

I have never seen an IQ as high as 94 for mexican mestizos. Your study is about 900-something people in total in a nation of over 100 million, and the first page gives no indication of the exact composition of the study.

You cite worldstarhiphop. Okay then- but what do you know about Mexico in similar regards? Can you explain to me why brutal drug cartel leaders are often seen as folk heros in Mexico?

Yeah, Mexican culture has plenty of glorification and celebration of it's worst elements. You cite the 8 year old murder of Christian and Newsom- well, here's a recent story indicating mexican drug cartels kill young children to harvest their organs: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/mexican-cartel-leader-accused-killing-children-harvest-organs-article-1.1725522

So how do you explain these rampant mass executions and complete disregard for human life if african-americans and blacks in general are really the worst? Is it really just due to a 5 point IQ difference that if equal, african-americans would be worse? Or are they worse already? Or we could turn an eye to the cartels and gangs of other latin american countries and their sky high murder rates.

That might be a bad idea though, since mentioning MS-13 has led you to say something completely insane- it's all the fault of african-americans. Because, if the poor people who formed MS-13 hadn't had any contact with n*ggers, it never would have existed in the first place, so you can blame a transnational gang (who's members often like to cover themselves head to toe in hideous tattoos, something not too many other groups do) that's more notorious than most african-american ones on them.

Even if that were somehow true, do you really think it reflects well on whatever segment of the hispanic community that produced MS-13 they'd react in such a way? You're not the first weirdo on the far right I've seen who's praised hispanics in their ethnic conflicts with american-blacks, but I've never seen it this blatant.

It's not anywhere near as rational/empirical/objective as you make it out to be. You make pathetic attempts at downplaying the atrocities and violence of mexican drug cartels and even excuse them or blame african-americans for MS-13. You from the start decried people who are "racist" against non-black groups by daring to say maybe black people aren't "the worst." I think there's far more animus against arabs now and historically than you like to indicate, given how Islam and the countless violent conquests etc. throughout history that have exported it came from Arabia. As for hispanics, there are few hispanics outside of the Americas, and what we see in the US are hardly the worst representatives of latin america. Still, I agree in modern times there is a distinctive hatred of africans compared to most other racial groups (though the roma people have similar hatred in europe), but again, it's not as objectively based as you like to make it out. All I'm really getting from you is "I just hate n*ggers."

What else could explain someone blaming them for MS-13?

helena:

I do think food procurement has an influence. I do think family group structure has an influence on sexual dimorphism. Exactly how and why, I don't know. I think it's more complex and difficult to ascertain than Peter and Sean argue.

Jim:

I personally think Gottfredson is an IQ fetishist and isn't completely objective. My point is that I don't think an average IQ of 85 should prevent a population from forming large, organized crime networks or cartels comparable to what's seen in Mexico. African-americans have indeed had organized crime networks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_organized_crime

I disagree about the Aztecs- they seem to have been pretty unique, and they were despised throughout Mexico. I recently learned however that the Inca also had state-sanctioned cannibalism, but probably not to the extent among the Aztecs, among other things. Nor were they a true civilization, given their lack of a written language.

”I have never seen an IQ as high as 94 for mexican mestizos. Your study is about 900-something people in total in a nation of over 100 million, and the first page gives no indication of the exact composition of the study.”

Immigrants from nearby regions tend to be dysgenic by nature and specially if have ”facilitations” as jobs, cultural bridges (as greater diaspora in this country OR same language, a common ”history”)

More distant, more social differences between the two countries, more difficult will be to immigrate, more selected will tend to be.

My point is that you tie greater male aggression, violence etc. into higher rates of polygamy, but that can exist easily without it, and that seems be the case worldwide in pre-modern times

The opposite of polygynous men being violent would be monogamous women being more violent than men. So Sweden (which you brought up) being more violent than an African country, or any country have more female than male violence, would weight against the post's thesis. I don't think anyone expects that you can read a theory about Africa to explain European war, but Boko Haram have not just been guilty of opportunistic rapes, they actually conduct raids for the purposes of kidnapping hundreds of women. Boko Haram's fighters are mainly young single men in are in a polygynous society where women are in short supply. Surely you can see the incentive for men to steal women in such an environment, which would have been far more common previously.

Men are more robust and powerfully built than women and darker complexioned than women. Men are more promiscuous, and inclined to use the threat of violence it to get what they want (basically sex). For example a nightclub that is great place to hook up is often a great place to get into a fight. My reading is Africa and other historically female garden agriculture areas (where an extra wife is an asset rather than a drain on the husbands resources) are like a nightclub, there is more incentive for men to fight or intimidate there. The

The darkest people in Africa are in and around Senegal, which has the highest rates of polygyny and soils suitable for female farming systems. There is a similar system in Bougainville island WHICH ALSO HAS VERY DARK SKIN. Senegal has a rather good football team, and west African descended populations are well known for dominating power sports such as sprinting. If you have never read that the Senegal and Gambia locals are the most African of African types then you can't have read much on the subject.

There is violence and intimidation at the individual level (which the post is about,), the tribal level and the state level. Multilevel group selection means the lower levels get suppressed, so tribes and can repress individual violence to make the group stronger against other tribes and states suppress tribal violence against other states. Senegal has a 900 year history as a state under Islam, and a lot of disruptive men must have been killed off by the stat. Aspects of male -male polygyny competition is being outgoing .

http://www.unz.com/pfrost/extraversion-tool-for-mating-success/. Alvergne et al. (2009, 2010a, 2010b) found no correlation among Senegalese men between mating success and most personality traits, i.e., neuroticism, openness, and agreeableness. One trait, however, showed a strong correlation. This was extraversion, defined as “pro-social behavior which reflects sociability, assertiveness, activity, dominance and positive emotions.” Men with above-medium extraversion were 40% more likely to have more than one wife than those with below-medium extraversion, after controlling for age. Furthermore, this personality trait correlated with higher testosterone levels. Such a linkage suggests that extraversion is part of the male toolkit for mating success in a high-polygyny environment.

But this is a culture with very tight constraints on sexual and illegal behaviour; Senegalese are not absent from African gangs in France,

Yes, the fact I'm talking about cartels that regularly engage in brutal mass murders and have been known to dump masses of bodies in public streets (http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/09/22/dumping-35-bodies-seen-as-challenge-to-zetas-cartel) somehow still means I'm making "vague and unsubstantiated statements."

You don't need to compare african-american to hispanic homicide rates. If you bothered to read my post, which you clearly didn't, and are now going on some bizarre fit about how it wasn't run of the mill "N*GGERS ARE THE WORST" tripe, here's what I said:

"The hispanic murder rate in the US is something like half (or less) that of african-americans, and there are many towns and cities in the US with large or predominantly hispanic populations with low or average homicide rates. I imagine it would be even lower if you excluded illegal immigrants, or considered solely mexican-americans."

The hispanic average IQ in the united states is 89, and is predominantly mexican, at over 60%. Jason Malloy has shown Puerto Ricans, the second largest (and at only 10%) have an IQ of 87-90: http://humanvarieties.org/2014/03/13/hvgiq-puerto-rico-2/

I have never seen an IQ as high as 94 for mexican mestizos. Your study is about 900-something people in total in a nation of over 100 million, and the first page gives no indication of the exact composition of the study.

You cite worldstarhiphop. Okay then- but what do you know about Mexico in similar regards? Can you explain to me why brutal drug cartel leaders are often seen as folk heros in Mexico?

Yeah, Mexican culture has plenty of glorification and celebration of it's worst elements. You cite the 8 year old murder of Christian and Newsom- well, here's a recent story indicating mexican drug cartels kill young children to harvest their organs: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/mexican-cartel-leader-accused-killing-children-harvest-organs-article-1.1725522

So how do you explain these rampant mass executions and complete disregard for human life if african-americans and blacks in general are really the worst? Is it really just due to a 5 point IQ difference that if equal, african-americans would be worse? Or are they worse already? Or we could turn an eye to the cartels and gangs of other latin american countries and their sky high murder rates.

That might be a bad idea though, since mentioning MS-13 has led you to say something completely insane- it's all the fault of african-americans. Because, if the poor people who formed MS-13 hadn't had any contact with n*ggers, it never would have existed in the first place, so you can blame a transnational gang (who's members often like to cover themselves head to toe in hideous tattoos, something not too many other groups do) that's more notorious than most african-american ones on them.

Even if that were somehow true, do you really think it reflects well on whatever segment of the hispanic community that produced MS-13 they'd react in such a way? You're not the first weirdo on the far right I've seen who's praised hispanics in their ethnic conflicts with american-blacks, but I've never seen it this blatant.

It's not anywhere near as rational/empirical/objective as you make it out to be. You make pathetic attempts at downplaying the atrocities and violence of mexican drug cartels and even excuse them or blame african-americans for MS-13. You from the start decried people who are "racist" against non-black groups by daring to say maybe black people aren't "the worst." I think there's far more animus against arabs now and historically than you like to indicate, given how Islam and the countless violent conquests etc. throughout history that have exported it came from Arabia. As for hispanics, there are few hispanics outside of the Americas, and what we see in the US are hardly the worst representatives of latin america. Still, I agree in modern times there is a distinctive hatred of africans compared to most other racial groups (though the roma people have similar hatred in europe), but again, it's not as objectively based as you like to make it out. All I'm really getting from you is "I just hate n*ggers."

What else could explain someone blaming them for MS-13?

helena:

I do think food procurement has an influence. I do think family group structure has an influence on sexual dimorphism. Exactly how and why, I don't know. I think it's more complex and difficult to ascertain than Peter and Sean argue.

Jim:

I personally think Gottfredson is an IQ fetishist and isn't completely objective. My point is that I don't think an average IQ of 85 should prevent a population from forming large, organized crime networks or cartels comparable to what's seen in Mexico. African-americans have indeed had organized crime networks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_organized_crime

I disagree about the Aztecs- they seem to have been pretty unique, and they were despised throughout Mexico. I recently learned however that the Inca also had state-sanctioned cannibalism, but probably not to the extent among the Aztecs, among other things. Nor were they a true civilization, given their lack of a written language.

There’s no way you’re not Black or part Black, btw. There’s no other incentive for someone to spend so much time (as a perusal of your posting history reveals) arguing “b-b-but Blacks aren’t the worst! Stop focusing so much on Blacks, guys!”

I won’t bother defending the behavior of Mexican cartels or the morons who celebrate them, but we’re comparing races.I’ll point out that in order to make your case, you need to focus on Mexico, a handful of small Central American countries, as well as countries with significant Black admixture (Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil). Can you show me similarly widespread sociopathic behavior currently occurring in heavily mestizo and/or indio countries such as Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, etc.?

That’s the major difference. Brutal behavior among Blacks is not limited to America. I could easily find similar stories of brutal murders and rapes from South Africa, Uganda, the Congo, Somalia, Brazil, and so on. Even Blacks in Canada, who tend to be positively selected and more educated than Blacks elsewhere, commit a disproportionate amount of crimes relative to their population share.

I’ll also note that Hispanic-American immigrants tend to be from the less educated and lower class segments of their countries. Many of them arrive here without a high school diploma. By no means are they a positively selected elite. And yet they and their children still have a drastically lower crime rates than African-Americans. I mean, it’s not even close. I noticed you conveniently chose to ignore La Griffe’s analysis. Did it hurt your feelings to see just how much more violent and criminal your precious African-Americans are compared to the Hispanics you’re trying to shift focus on?

And many people are aware of these statistics, even if on a gut level. They know that Blacks are much more likely to make a neighborhood insufferable than any other group. It’s not just crime either, but the way Blacks often behave in general once they’re concentrated in an area. That’s why Blacks are the most loathed race in the world, and that’s what you can’t bring yourself to admit. Once again, it’s not some arbitrary decision to hate Blacks the most.

I have never seen an IQ as high as 94 for mexican mestizos. Your study is about 900-something people in total in a nation of over 100 million, and the first page gives no indication of the exact composition of the study.

Well, I just showed you one. You’re complaining about a study with a sample size of 900 people? Do you know how statistics works? An N value of 900 is fairly robust. Many IQ studies have smaller sample sizes. (Puerto Ricans also have significant Black ancestry, btw, much higher than the average Mexican.)

And the fact is that Blacks have always been considered at the bottom of the racial totem pole. It’s not only in modern times that this is the case. For example, here is Thomas Jefferson writing about them:

A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course.

Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad. The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture.

The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life. We know that among the Romans, about the Augustan age especially, the condition of their slaves was much more deplorable than that of the blacks on the continent of America. The two sexes were confined in separate apartments, because to raise a child cost the master more than to buy one. Cato, for a very restricted indulgence to his slaves in this particular, took from them a certain price. But in this country the slaves multiply as fast as the free inhabitants. Their situation and manners place the commerce between the two sexes almost without restraint.

And here is Francisco García Calderón, from his Latin America: Its Rise and Progress:

One may say that the admixture of the prevailing strains with black blood has been disastrous for these democracies. In applying John Stuart Mill’s law of concomitant variations to the development of Spanish America one may determine a necessary relation between the numerical proportion of negroes and the intensity of civilisation. Wealth increases and internal order is greater in the Argentine, Uruguay, and Chile, and it is precisely in these countries that the proportion of negroes has always been low ; they have disappeared in the admixture of European races. In Cuba, San Domingo, and some of the republics of Central America, and certain of the States of the Brazilial Confederation, where the children of slaves constitute the greater portion of the population, internal disorders are continual. A black republic, Haiti, demonstrates by its revolutionary history the political incapacity of the negro race. The mulatto and the zambo are the true American hybrids. D’Orbigny believed the mestizo to be superior to the descendants of the Africans imported as slaves ; Burmeister is of opinion that in the mulatto the characteristics of the negro are predominant. Ayarragaray states that the children born of the union of negroes with zambos or natives are in general inferior to their parents, as much in intelligence as in physical energy. The inferior elements of the races which unite are evidently combined in their offspring. It is observed also that both in the mulattos and the zambos certain internal contraditions may be noted ; their will is weak and uncertain, and is dominated by instinct and gross and violent passions. Weakness of character corresponds with a turgid intelligence, incapable of profound analysis, or method, or general ideas, and a certain oratorical extravagance, a pompous rhetoric. The mulatto loves luxury and extravagance ; he is servile, and lacks moral feeling. The invasion of negroes affected all the Iberian colonies, where, to replace the outrageously exploited Indian, African slaves were imported by the ingenuous evangelists of the time. In Brazil, Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, and Peru this caste forms a high proportion of the total population. In Brazil 15 per cent, of the population is composed of negroes, without counting the immense number of mulattos and zambos. Bahia is half an African city. In Rio de Janiero the negroes of pure blood abound. In Panama the full-blooded Africans form 10 per cent, of the population. Between 1759 and 1803 642,000 negroes entered Brazil; between 1792 and 1810 Cuba received 89,000. These figures prove the formidable influence of the former slaves in modern America. But they are revenged for their enslavement in that their blood is mingled with that of their masters.

Incapable of order and self-government, they are a factor of anarchy ; every species of vain outer show attracts them sonorous phraseology and ostentation. They make a show of an official function, a university title, or an academic diploma. As the Indian could not work in the tropics black immigration was directed principally upon those regions, and the enervating climate, the indiscipline of the mulatto, and the weakness of the white element have contributed to the decadence of the Equatorial nations.

The mulatto is more despised than the mestizo because he often shows the abjectness of the slave and the indecision of the hybrid ; he is at once servile and arrogant, envious and ambitious. His violent desire to mount to a higher social rank, to acquire wealth, power, and display, is, as Sefior Bunge very justly remarks, a ” hyperaesthesia of arrivism.”

The zambos have created nothing in America. On the other hand, the robust mestizo populations, the Mamelucos of Brazil, the Cholos of Peru and Bolivia, the Rotos of Chile, descendants of Spaniards and the Guarani Indians, are distinguished by their pride and virility. Instability, apathy, degeneration all the signs of exhausted race are encountered far more frequently in the mulatto than in the mestizo.

And if you want one more example of the unique prejudice directed towards Blacks a century ago, here’s H.P. Lovecraft:

Various race-stocks differ in inclinations & aptitudes, but of all of them I consider only the negro & australoid biologically inferior. Against these two a rigid colour-line ought to exist.

In dealing with these two black races, there is only one sound attitude for any other race (be it Indian, Malay, Polynesian, or Mongolian) to take–& that is to prevent admixture as completely & determinedly as it can be prevented, through the establishment of a colour-line & the rigid forcing of all mixed offspring below that line. I am in accord with the most vehement & vociferous Alabaman or Mississippian on that point, & it will be found that most Northerners react similarly when it comes to a practical showdown, no matter how much abstract equalitarian nonsense they may spout as a result of the abolitionist tradition inherited from the 1850’s. If a Russian-inspired communist dictatorship ever tried to force negro equality on the U. S., there is scant question but that the descendants of Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, & William Lloyd Garrison would stand side by side with those of Jefferson Davis & John C. Calhoun in fighting its ultimate implications to the death.

Members of one race can fit into another only through the complete eradication of their own background-influences–& even then the adjustment will always remain uneasy & imperfect if the newcomer’s physical aspect forms a constant reminder of his outside origin. Therefore it is wise to discourage all mixtures of sharply differentiated races—though the colour-line does not need to be drawn as strictly as in the case of the negro, since we know that a dash or two of Mongolian or Indian or Hindoo or some such blood will not actually injure a white stock biologically. John Randolph of Roanoke was none the worse off for having the blood of Pocahontas in his veins, nor does any Finn or Hungarian feel like a mongrel because his stock has a remote & now almost forgotten Mongoloid strain. With the high-grade alien races we can adopt a policy of flexible common-sense—discouraging mixture whenever we can, but not clamping down the bars so ruthlessly against every individual of slightly mixed ancestry.

There is no doubt that black Africans have more robust bones, dominate sprinting, and have propensity to get into physical confrontations . Black men are more high rated for physical attractiveness by women, and less likely to stay with one woman.

Dietrich, read Houellebecq's book on HP Lovecraft, which quotes him about Europeans as if they were something out of the Dulwich Horror, before you cite him as an example of a particular antipathy toward blacks

Murder rates in small, primitive tribal contexts are not comparable or extrapolable to more complex contexts. You cannot expect whatsoever a "murder rate" of over 600 to be literally sustained beyond the setting of a stone age tribal one, or that it's even accurate to think of that as a murder rate comparable to anything in a more complex society. There are far fewer people in those papuan societies, and any murder (or more accurately, death in war) in a small setting like that is going to register in an absolute sense as a very high murder rate. At the same time, the mindset and dynamics behind "murder" are not the same in an absolute sense compared to modern ones. This is what led Pinker (and seemingly you) to extrapolate these in a literal sense and act like one murder in a group of small tribal bands is truly comparable to something like mass murder in a more advanced setting, among other things. If one person commits a murder in a band of 100 people, that murder rate would register as 100/100k. In terms of proportions, that person is a mass murderer. But it's very doubtful that person is as sociopathic as an actual mass murderer and they'd have the capacity to commit it in a bigger population, or that many people would see them as comparable to one. That is what we're talking about when we look at killings in stone age tribal villages.

Imagine a scenario in which a few hundred people of european descent were stranded on a deserted island. They form a small society. Over time, a few get killed here and there over personal quarrels. They in essence aren't that different from what is seen back in their home countries, which all have low murder rates. But given the small population and the proportion of murders, they would register a murder rate radically higher. You could come up with other similar examples, like a village of a few hundred or so where from time to time a few people get murdered. Owing to the small population, the murder rate would be registered as very high, but you can't expect this to be sustained in the same sense beyond this setting or that the dynamics of violence/sociopathy/etc. can be magnified so readily.

Your comparison with how people in the new guinea highlands engage in war is kind of disingenuous. Any tribal war for people that primitive with such small populations is going to register high "murder" rates, and would often manifest with what are in reality very petty reasons.

Papua New Guinea is a very poor, undeveloped country, and even the parts exposed to modernity are usually backwards. Government control and influence is marginal and people often have few modern amenities. Barring them returning to a purely stone age context with minimal agriculture, you really think a literal murder rate like that would be widely seen if those minor controls dissolved, or that it would increase much in an absolute sense at all?

The point about the pygmies was that I do not think, given what has been documented about them behavior wise, that murder rate (which would probably be higher than african-americans) would literally sustain itself in a larger, more complex setting. I should have clarified this a bit more aside from the example with women, though. There are settled pygmy communities where people have some modern amenities and the people number in the thousands, and I doubt the murder rate is literally as high, or high at all. At the same time, the extreme gender equality likely hasn't sustained itself and there are more than likely a few women who over time have been murdered by men. The mechanisms and dynamics behind behaviors in small, primitive tribal contexts are usually very different from those of people in larger, more complex settings. But through all this, I don't really think it's monogamy why the pygmies are so non-violent.

I didn't say modern police can't deter crime. However, the extent of how much it can deter it is. At an extreme, it can prevent a remarkable amount of crime if it's completely totalitarian and all encompassing and targets any slight with extreme repercussions (like what you see in North Korea), but beyond that, it isn't as clear. Tight policing can variously exacerbate crime, and what would be helpful is if you could compare the african-american murder rate before it peaked and it led to a larger incarceration that ultimately lowered the rate to now. It mainly peaked when drug use was in full-swing (an exception you again only allowed for latin americans), similar to what is seen in latin america, but is there any indication it was really that higher before modern policing and other modern controls?

You make a good point about the murder rate in the US before modern medical technology, but I'm not entirely convinced. I've seen other data and arguments to indicate murder rates would be higher without modern technology (and this is the case in third world countries.)

I see what you mean about the influence of the church, but you were claiming even now, they are strong contingencies against higher murder rates, and I don't think that's very accurate.

"Yes, that’s State-organized violence. The State can kill far more people than can individuals acting on their own."

Uh.... the people who kill POW's, civilians, engage in brutal torture etc. are still individual soldiers and such. You continually act like the violence we've seen in the past during war or various states of it, where atrocities and such were committed at far greater frequencies than we see now, can be distinctively parsed from behavior in the regular social sphere, that they aren't indicative of behavior outside of war. There is no reason to believe this.

I think it's debatable if underreporting is on the whole worse. I have seen murder statistics far african countries that are unbelievably low, but other times much higher ones. On the other hand, international agencies have routinely ranked various latin american countries as among the most dangerous in the world outside of warzones, moreso than many african ones, in spite of whatever underreporting there is. We get higher recorded murder rates than many african countries in places like Honduras, with plenty of indication there are heavily underreported, even before the spikes in the drug trade.

I'm not denying what the UN report said. My point is that the presence of organized crime networks means male violence is concentrated in different realms, and we'd very likely see far higher violence against women without them. We already see plenty even with their presence.

Venezuela and Brazil do not in any way have similar makeups. The african Venezuelan might have significant african ancestry, but it's not comparable to Brazil. The black ancestry is much more pervasive and widespread in Brazil, and heavily african individuals are much more common. The "black" population in Venezuela is under 3%. Brazilians have very little amerind ancestry, and the amerind population is very small and mostly found in the rainforest regions.

”Murder rates in small, primitive tribal contexts are not comparable or extrapolable to more complex contexts. You cannot expect whatsoever a “murder rate” of over 600 to be literally sustained beyond the setting of a stone age tribal one, or that it’s even accurate to think of that as a murder rate comparable to anything in a more complex society. There are far fewer people in those papuan societies, and any murder (or more accurately, death in war) in a small setting like that is going to register in an absolute sense as a very high murder rate. At the same time, the mindset and dynamics behind “murder” are not the same in an absolute sense compared to modern ones. This is what led Pinker (and seemingly you) to extrapolate these in a literal sense and act like one murder in a group of small tribal bands is truly comparable to something like mass murder in a more advanced setting, among other things. If one person commits a murder in a band of 100 people, that murder rate would register as 100/100k. In terms of proportions, that person is a mass murderer. But it’s very doubtful that person is as sociopathic as an actual mass murderer and they’d have the capacity to commit it in a bigger population, or that many people would see them as comparable to one. That is what we’re talking about when we look at killings in stone age tribal villages.”

Depending on the size of the population, yes, we can compare with tribes with societies. Of course, dozens of people, in fact, will inflate the results of proportion of murderers. But that does not mean it’s impossible to compare, even in these groups. Only if it is applied a statistical and historical/cultural CORRECT analysis.

If afro-caribbeans and (most) afro-americans have little genetic differences, than environmental factors, as live in superpower as US or in Bahamas, it will can have a impact (is easy to live in a country like Bahamas). But, what i already see superficially about it is that caribbean countries with higher % of blacks, also have higher % of crime rates.

There's no way you're not Black or part Black, btw. There's no other incentive for someone to spend so much time (as a perusal of your posting history reveals) arguing "b-b-but Blacks aren't the worst! Stop focusing so much on Blacks, guys!"

I won't bother defending the behavior of Mexican cartels or the morons who celebrate them, but we're comparing races.I'll point out that in order to make your case, you need to focus on Mexico, a handful of small Central American countries, as well as countries with significant Black admixture (Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil). Can you show me similarly widespread sociopathic behavior currently occurring in heavily mestizo and/or indio countries such as Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, etc.?

That's the major difference. Brutal behavior among Blacks is not limited to America. I could easily find similar stories of brutal murders and rapes from South Africa, Uganda, the Congo, Somalia, Brazil, and so on. Even Blacks in Canada, who tend to be positively selected and more educated than Blacks elsewhere, commit a disproportionate amount of crimes relative to their population share.

I'll also note that Hispanic-American immigrants tend to be from the less educated and lower class segments of their countries. Many of them arrive here without a high school diploma. By no means are they a positively selected elite. And yet they and their children still have a drastically lower crime rates than African-Americans. I mean, it's not even close. I noticed you conveniently chose to ignore La Griffe's analysis. Did it hurt your feelings to see just how much more violent and criminal your precious African-Americans are compared to the Hispanics you're trying to shift focus on?

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/hispanic.htm

And many people are aware of these statistics, even if on a gut level. They know that Blacks are much more likely to make a neighborhood insufferable than any other group. It's not just crime either, but the way Blacks often behave in general once they're concentrated in an area. That's why Blacks are the most loathed race in the world, and that's what you can't bring yourself to admit. Once again, it's not some arbitrary decision to hate Blacks the most.

I have never seen an IQ as high as 94 for mexican mestizos. Your study is about 900-something people in total in a nation of over 100 million, and the first page gives no indication of the exact composition of the study.

Well, I just showed you one. You're complaining about a study with a sample size of 900 people? Do you know how statistics works? An N value of 900 is fairly robust. Many IQ studies have smaller sample sizes. (Puerto Ricans also have significant Black ancestry, btw, much higher than the average Mexican.)

And the fact is that Blacks have always been considered at the bottom of the racial totem pole. It's not only in modern times that this is the case. For example, here is Thomas Jefferson writing about them:

A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course.

Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad. The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture.

The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life. We know that among the Romans, about the Augustan age especially, the condition of their slaves was much more deplorable than that of the blacks on the continent of America. The two sexes were confined in separate apartments, because to raise a child cost the master more than to buy one. Cato, for a very restricted indulgence to his slaves in this particular, took from them a certain price. But in this country the slaves multiply as fast as the free inhabitants. Their situation and manners place the commerce between the two sexes almost without restraint.

And here is Francisco García Calderón, from his Latin America: Its Rise and Progress:

One may say that the admixture of the prevailing strains with black blood has been disastrous for these democracies. In applying John Stuart Mill's law of concomitant variations to the development of Spanish America one may determine a necessary relation between the numerical proportion of negroes and the intensity of civilisation. Wealth increases and internal order is greater in the Argentine, Uruguay, and Chile, and it is precisely in these countries that the proportion of negroes has always been low ; they have disappeared in the admixture of European races. In Cuba, San Domingo, and some of the republics of Central America, and certain of the States of the Brazilial Confederation, where the children of slaves constitute the greater portion of the population, internal disorders are continual. A black republic, Haiti, demonstrates by its revolutionary history the political incapacity of the negro race. The mulatto and the zambo are the true American hybrids. D'Orbigny believed the mestizo to be superior to the descendants of the Africans imported as slaves ; Burmeister is of opinion that in the mulatto the characteristics of the negro are predominant. Ayarragaray states that the children born of the union of negroes with zambos or natives are in general inferior to their parents, as much in intelligence as in physical energy. The inferior elements of the races which unite are evidently combined in their offspring. It is observed also that both in the mulattos and the zambos certain internal contraditions may be noted ; their will is weak and uncertain, and is dominated by instinct and gross and violent passions. Weakness of character corresponds with a turgid intelligence, incapable of profound analysis, or method, or general ideas, and a certain oratorical extravagance, a pompous rhetoric. The mulatto loves luxury and extravagance ; he is servile, and lacks moral feeling. The invasion of negroes affected all the Iberian colonies, where, to replace the outrageously exploited Indian, African slaves were imported by the ingenuous evangelists of the time. In Brazil, Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, and Peru this caste forms a high proportion of the total population. In Brazil 15 per cent, of the population is composed of negroes, without counting the immense number of mulattos and zambos. Bahia is half an African city. In Rio de Janiero the negroes of pure blood abound. In Panama the full-blooded Africans form 10 per cent, of the population. Between 1759 and 1803 642,000 negroes entered Brazil; between 1792 and 1810 Cuba received 89,000. These figures prove the formidable influence of the former slaves in modern America. But they are revenged for their enslavement in that their blood is mingled with that of their masters.

Incapable of order and self-government, they are a factor of anarchy ; every species of vain outer show attracts them sonorous phraseology and ostentation. They make a show of an official function, a university title, or an academic diploma. As the Indian could not work in the tropics black immigration was directed principally upon those regions, and the enervating climate, the indiscipline of the mulatto, and the weakness of the white element have contributed to the decadence of the Equatorial nations.

The mulatto is more despised than the mestizo because he often shows the abjectness of the slave and the indecision of the hybrid ; he is at once servile and arrogant, envious and ambitious. His violent desire to mount to a higher social rank, to acquire wealth, power, and display, is, as Sefior Bunge very justly remarks, a " hyperaesthesia of arrivism."

The zambos have created nothing in America. On the other hand, the robust mestizo populations, the Mamelucos of Brazil, the Cholos of Peru and Bolivia, the Rotos of Chile, descendants of Spaniards and the Guarani Indians, are distinguished by their pride and virility. Instability, apathy, degeneration all the signs of exhausted race are encountered far more frequently in the mulatto than in the mestizo.

And if you want one more example of the unique prejudice directed towards Blacks a century ago, here's H.P. Lovecraft:

Various race-stocks differ in inclinations & aptitudes, but of all of them I consider only the negro & australoid biologically inferior. Against these two a rigid colour-line ought to exist.

In dealing with these two black races, there is only one sound attitude for any other race (be it Indian, Malay, Polynesian, or Mongolian) to take–& that is to prevent admixture as completely & determinedly as it can be prevented, through the establishment of a colour-line & the rigid forcing of all mixed offspring below that line. I am in accord with the most vehement & vociferous Alabaman or Mississippian on that point, & it will be found that most Northerners react similarly when it comes to a practical showdown, no matter how much abstract equalitarian nonsense they may spout as a result of the abolitionist tradition inherited from the 1850’s. If a Russian-inspired communist dictatorship ever tried to force negro equality on the U. S., there is scant question but that the descendants of Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, & William Lloyd Garrison would stand side by side with those of Jefferson Davis & John C. Calhoun in fighting its ultimate implications to the death.

Members of one race can fit into another only through the complete eradication of their own background-influences–& even then the adjustment will always remain uneasy & imperfect if the newcomer’s physical aspect forms a constant reminder of his outside origin. Therefore it is wise to discourage all mixtures of sharply differentiated races—though the colour-line does not need to be drawn as strictly as in the case of the negro, since we know that a dash or two of Mongolian or Indian or Hindoo or some such blood will not actually injure a white stock biologically. John Randolph of Roanoke was none the worse off for having the blood of Pocahontas in his veins, nor does any Finn or Hungarian feel like a mongrel because his stock has a remote & now almost forgotten Mongoloid strain. With the high-grade alien races we can adopt a policy of flexible common-sense—discouraging mixture whenever we can, but not clamping down the bars so ruthlessly against every individual of slightly mixed ancestry.

Why on Earth would you conclude that a reasonably intelligent but kind of foolish anti-racist was a mestizo? This guy is a moderate. Seriously, he's a lot closer to the HBD side than the average Democrat. Oh, and there's his name, which isn't proof, but is evidence

None of the links you provided say anything about how common polygyny is in Yanomamo society, much less that it is anywhere on par in SS africa. The behavior described isn't terribly uncommon compared to tribal people elsewhere in the world. Yanomamo desire to have multiple wives doesn't translate to that being common in their society, or that such a thing is sustainable. Nevermind that bantu society isn't typically centered around war to the extent Yanomamo society is, or that the Yanomamo are stone age people with limited agriculture.

That 70,000 year divergence between bantus and pygmies struck me as very hard to believe, so I went to the link and found this: http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/1164.htm

"After a period of isolation, during which current phenotype differences between Pygmies and Bantu farmers accumulated, Pygmy women started marrying male Bantu farmers (but not the opposite). This trend started around 40,000 years ago, and continued until several thousand years ago."

Even that 30,000 year gap sounds hard to believe. I mean, aside from height, pygmies do not look *that* different from bantus, not at all what you'd expect for 70,000 years (which is somewhere in the range of africans vs. eurasians.)

The point about pygmies is that they're an example extreme rates of physical maturation can coexist with monogamy and extensive child rearing, even though that might be a very particular environmental adaption. It would be helpful if you could actually cite references to this thing about Sudanese girls, and I have never seen Peter propose this. Sexual selection in relation to looks isn't as particularly relevant to that issue.

I'm not sure what you mean by "The alternative is to explain things like beards and long straight hair as inexplicable". I think most human physical variation (aside from physique) is due to drift, very secondarily sexual selection and minimally natural selection. Yes, we're in agreement about polygyny being correlated with dark skin in SS africa, but not to the extent you think it is. You just seem to fixate on the fact Bougainville has been in a state of low level of warfare for awhile and the fact... wow, they're really dark. Is there anything unique about Bougainville warfare or their marriage system (IE on par with SS africa) or that the comparatively darkest parts of SS africa are similar in terms of social strife? (they're not.)

I'm not proposing any of those theories, but I think your fixation on sexual selection is even more far fetched. I do not see any indication pygmies are weak aside from their height. I have read they are incredibly flexible and have very loose joints, and their children exhibit marked physical development early on. Here's footage of a pygmy boy hacking a tree with a machete that's as tall as he is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDdXYYLoygM T

hey are a good deal lighter than bantus, but not dramatically so, and they're similar in color to various southern african bantus. This post, which is about the Hadza, are worth looking at, since they're as dark as bantus and aside from height are outwardly about the same looks-wise.

African-americans in the US are slightly shorter than whites. And I'm sorry, but sexual selection isn't as narrow as you make it out to be. Sexual dimorphism is usually typified by considerable differences between males and females, and that usually means more muscular, powerfully built males vs. females. There's no reason this doesn't translate to similar dynamics in humans, and Europeans are more sexually dymorphic than africans. And even then it's complex, as African-american women are much more prone to obesity than black men and white women, which doesn't work in their favor as being powerfully built, like you cite with the Williams sisters. Being good in sprinting and other "power" sports doesn't translate to all around good physical prowess. The Kalenjin are the best runners in the world, but they have very narrow, spindly frames that don't translate into prowess in other realms. Blacks have smaller lung capacity than whites, and that limits them in a variety of areas. As I mentioned, they aren't as over-represented in strong man, body building, MMA etc. fields.

Consider also the khoisan, another monogamous african population and the lightest of all. They exhibit some very unique physical features unseen anywhere else in the world (or atleast to the extent among them), like steatopygia, hanging labia etc. The women basically exhibit extreme secondary sex characteristics, and men have a tendency towards androgyny/neoteny, some exhbiting steatopygia too. Sexual selection is likely a role since it's been documented khoisan men prize steatopygia in women. But this is all in a highly monogamous people.

The nilotes aren't exactly masculine either. They usually have thin, narrow, spindly limbs, and long legs and short torsos. Many of them have a rather androgynous appearance. I've seen a lot of tribal south sudanese women who are muscular, but it's not as clear cut as you make it out to be.

Jim:

I should have specified more- the worst of mexican society is worse than most of what the worst of african-american society produces. African-american society does not produce drug cartels filled to the brim with psychopaths who regularly engage in mass murder and get off on dumping their mutilated victims out in public.

“… their children exhibit marked physical development early on”
That is why the result of some kind of selection, for early development and reproduction seem a little more likely than drift to me. The Nilotics are very tall, and have marriage practices with brideprice in cattle. Surely you have read of this central part of their society even if you have never read of the theory that the extreme height of Nilotics is a result of selection for taller girls who can be eligible for marriage sooner. If you count the Khoisans with Bantu, Nilotics and Pygmies there are four groups in sub Saharan Africa who have different modes of existence are quite different in appearance, and have been living in the same part of continent for hundreds of generations. The Bantu and the Pygmies live right beside one another and Pygmy men never marry Bantu women.

Anyway, the post is all about the Bantu agriculturalists compared to hunter gatherers. You keep bringing up non power sports, but Bantu especially west African descended populations dominate sprinting not distance running and that is good evidence they are more powerful. Male male competition and reproduction seems emphasised in female farming systems while hunter gather men have a more economical type of physique There is no proof it is not drift admittedly.

so why is senegal the least voilent country in Africa? Senegal is also the most polygamous country in the world.

There is violence and intimidation at the individual level (which the post is about,), the tribal level and the state level. Multilevel group selection means the lower levels get suppressed, so tribes and can repress individual violence to make the group stronger against other tribes and states suppress tribal violence against other states. Senegal has a 900 year history as a state under Islam, and a lot of disruptive men must have been killed off by the stat. Aspects of male -male polygyny competition is being outgoing .

http://www.unz.com/pfrost/extraversion-tool-for-mating-success/. Alvergne et al. (2009, 2010a, 2010b) found no correlation among Senegalese men between mating success and most personality traits, i.e., neuroticism, openness, and agreeableness. One trait, however, showed a strong correlation. This was extraversion, defined as “pro-social behavior which reflects sociability, assertiveness, activity, dominance and positive emotions.” Men with above-medium extraversion were 40% more likely to have more than one wife than those with below-medium extraversion, after controlling for age. Furthermore, this personality trait correlated with higher testosterone levels. Such a linkage suggests that extraversion is part of the male toolkit for mating success in a high-polygyny environment.

But this is a culture with very tight constraints on sexual and illegal behaviour; Senegalese are not absent from African gangs in France,

Yes, the fact I'm talking about cartels that regularly engage in brutal mass murders and have been known to dump masses of bodies in public streets (http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/09/22/dumping-35-bodies-seen-as-challenge-to-zetas-cartel) somehow still means I'm making "vague and unsubstantiated statements."

You don't need to compare african-american to hispanic homicide rates. If you bothered to read my post, which you clearly didn't, and are now going on some bizarre fit about how it wasn't run of the mill "N*GGERS ARE THE WORST" tripe, here's what I said:

"The hispanic murder rate in the US is something like half (or less) that of african-americans, and there are many towns and cities in the US with large or predominantly hispanic populations with low or average homicide rates. I imagine it would be even lower if you excluded illegal immigrants, or considered solely mexican-americans."

The hispanic average IQ in the united states is 89, and is predominantly mexican, at over 60%. Jason Malloy has shown Puerto Ricans, the second largest (and at only 10%) have an IQ of 87-90: http://humanvarieties.org/2014/03/13/hvgiq-puerto-rico-2/

I have never seen an IQ as high as 94 for mexican mestizos. Your study is about 900-something people in total in a nation of over 100 million, and the first page gives no indication of the exact composition of the study.

You cite worldstarhiphop. Okay then- but what do you know about Mexico in similar regards? Can you explain to me why brutal drug cartel leaders are often seen as folk heros in Mexico?

Yeah, Mexican culture has plenty of glorification and celebration of it's worst elements. You cite the 8 year old murder of Christian and Newsom- well, here's a recent story indicating mexican drug cartels kill young children to harvest their organs: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/mexican-cartel-leader-accused-killing-children-harvest-organs-article-1.1725522

So how do you explain these rampant mass executions and complete disregard for human life if african-americans and blacks in general are really the worst? Is it really just due to a 5 point IQ difference that if equal, african-americans would be worse? Or are they worse already? Or we could turn an eye to the cartels and gangs of other latin american countries and their sky high murder rates.

That might be a bad idea though, since mentioning MS-13 has led you to say something completely insane- it's all the fault of african-americans. Because, if the poor people who formed MS-13 hadn't had any contact with n*ggers, it never would have existed in the first place, so you can blame a transnational gang (who's members often like to cover themselves head to toe in hideous tattoos, something not too many other groups do) that's more notorious than most african-american ones on them.

Even if that were somehow true, do you really think it reflects well on whatever segment of the hispanic community that produced MS-13 they'd react in such a way? You're not the first weirdo on the far right I've seen who's praised hispanics in their ethnic conflicts with american-blacks, but I've never seen it this blatant.

It's not anywhere near as rational/empirical/objective as you make it out to be. You make pathetic attempts at downplaying the atrocities and violence of mexican drug cartels and even excuse them or blame african-americans for MS-13. You from the start decried people who are "racist" against non-black groups by daring to say maybe black people aren't "the worst." I think there's far more animus against arabs now and historically than you like to indicate, given how Islam and the countless violent conquests etc. throughout history that have exported it came from Arabia. As for hispanics, there are few hispanics outside of the Americas, and what we see in the US are hardly the worst representatives of latin america. Still, I agree in modern times there is a distinctive hatred of africans compared to most other racial groups (though the roma people have similar hatred in europe), but again, it's not as objectively based as you like to make it out. All I'm really getting from you is "I just hate n*ggers."

What else could explain someone blaming them for MS-13?

helena:

I do think food procurement has an influence. I do think family group structure has an influence on sexual dimorphism. Exactly how and why, I don't know. I think it's more complex and difficult to ascertain than Peter and Sean argue.

Jim:

I personally think Gottfredson is an IQ fetishist and isn't completely objective. My point is that I don't think an average IQ of 85 should prevent a population from forming large, organized crime networks or cartels comparable to what's seen in Mexico. African-americans have indeed had organized crime networks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_organized_crime

I disagree about the Aztecs- they seem to have been pretty unique, and they were despised throughout Mexico. I recently learned however that the Inca also had state-sanctioned cannibalism, but probably not to the extent among the Aztecs, among other things. Nor were they a true civilization, given their lack of a written language.

The Andean cultures don’t seem to have been quite as bloodthirsty as Meso-American cultures. But very high levels of war together with human sacrifice and cannibalism are very common in Meso-American cultures. The Aztecs were not that unique in that regard.

In the ancient Near East the general purpose of war was to secure tribute and taxes from conquered areas. In Meso-America it often seems as if sheer genocide was the purpose of war.

The Andean cultures don't seem to have been quite as bloodthirsty as Meso-American cultures. But very high levels of war together with human sacrifice and cannibalism are very common in Meso-American cultures. The Aztecs were not that unique in that regard.

In the ancient Near East the general purpose of war was to secure tribute and taxes from conquered areas. In Meso-America it often seems as if sheer genocide was the purpose of war.

Jim,

They kept written records. Hundreds of different goods that were due as tribute. They even counted the number of feathers that were due.

Yes, Meso-Americans had tributary relations but compared to civilizations of the Ancient Near East they seemed far more inclined to genocidal violence. If you were a ruler conquered by the Hittities you became a vassal of the Hittite King. If you were the ruler of a city conquered in Meso-American your heart was ripped out of your living body and consumed by your conquerer.

The Andean cultures don't seem to have been quite as bloodthirsty as Meso-American cultures. But very high levels of war together with human sacrifice and cannibalism are very common in Meso-American cultures. The Aztecs were not that unique in that regard.

In the ancient Near East the general purpose of war was to secure tribute and taxes from conquered areas. In Meso-America it often seems as if sheer genocide was the purpose of war.

Jim,

They kept written records. Hundreds of different goods that were due as tribute. They even counted the number of feathers that were due.

Oxford in one year had a murder rate of over 100/100k in one year in the 1300′s:

The estimate of 20 to 40 homicides per year per 100,000 is for England in the late Middle Ages, c. 1500. The rates seem to increase as we go farther back in time, but it's hard to tell, given the incompleteness of the data. But let's say the rate was 100 homicides per 100,000 in the 1300s. That's still much lower than the rates of 660 to 690 per 100,000 in the highlands of New Guinea.

I’ve long found the usage of homicide rates for very small, tribal populations incredibly misleading in this manner. You cannot extrapolate the significance of murders and war in small tribal bands/villages (and war is where most deaths in them occur)

In a modern society, war means being sent to a distant land and being told to fire your gun at an enemy you scarcely see and scarcely know. It's State-organized violence, and not personal violence.

In the highlands of New Guinea, it's more like a brawl after an English soccer match where you get to kill the other guy and take his girlfriend (and keep her along with the other girlfriends you've taken over the years). It's all about sex, being with other young guys, and showing off to them.

And that's very comparable to the kind of violence we now see among "youths."

I’ve seen little indication settled, more modern peoples in Papua New Guinea are quite this bad.

The homicide rate of the Aka is very low for a foraging people (approximately .003%) though still higher than the United States (approximately .00005% in 2008).

I agree. The Aka are hunter-gatherers with a low polygyny rate (less than 10%) and a low level of male-male competition for mates. This was the point of the study by Butovskaya et al. (2015). The monogamous Hadza (likewise hunter-gatherers) are much less aggressive than the polygynous Datoga.

The link between modern policing and crime is very debatable

It depends on the population. The Amish don't need policing because parents and neighbors enforce norms of correct behavior. Religion also inculcates fear of "sinful" behavior. Finally, the Amish have good impulse control, strong future orientation, and a high capacity to internalize universal moral rules, i.e., if it's wrong for someone to do something bad to me, it's also wrong for me to do the same thing to someone else. (Some folks have trouble internalizing that rule).

Other people need policing because external controls on behavior are weak or nonexistent. This is often the case with children raised in single-parent households in an anonymous, socially atomized environment. Some people also have weak internal controls.

It's silly to say that policing has no effect on crime. One can argue that it's often unnecessary because parental/community surveillance is doing its job and because the community is composed of people who can police their own behavior.

It would be helpful if you could properly compare murder rates in african countries and parse them from deaths due to worse access to modern medical care.

If we go back to 1900, antibiotics were not available and doctors probably killed more people than they saved. Yet the U.S. homicide rate was much lower then than it is now, despite the improvements in medical care.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/17/rick_nevin_murder_statistics_safest_year_ever.html

And churches and church-sponsored youth groups? Really?

Religion does influence behavior, including crime. When French Canadians deserted the Church en masse in the early 1960s, there was a sharp fall in the birth rate, a sharp rise in the divorce rate, and an increase in domestic violence.

The African American community went through a similar change in the early 1960s. Previously, the churches had a strong influence on family and community through external controls (shaming, peer pressure, community surveillance) and internal controls (fear of God, guilt). Weakening of religion was similar among Euro Americans, but the effects were much more catastrophic for African Americans.

atrocities against civilians, POW’s etc. on the part of pre-modern societies can be particularly indicative of their propensity to violence in the social and public spheres.

Yes, that's State-organized violence. The State can kill far more people than can individuals acting on their own.

you are allowing the drug trade as being the reason for the incredible homicides in latin america. I don’t deny that this is why there has been a recent spike, but homicide rates were very high even before this spike, and you have to consider how many murders and other crimes go unreported.

Underreporting is probably a bigger factor in sub-Saharan Africa.

Just about any quote would be relevant, especially to your claim that homicide in africa is a “very different profile”,

It wasn't my claim. It was the conclusion of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Read the report.

In Venezuela, which is overwhelmingly mestizo, unlike heavily black/mulatto Brazil

The two countries have about the same ethnic makeup. A study found that the average Venezuelan is 60% European, 23% indigenous, and 16% African. Brazil has a higher African component, about 25% I believe.

The hispanic murder rate in the US is something like half (or less) that of african-americans

Less.

About”African component” in Brazil. You are talking about genetic composition of average Brazilian (trirracial) and average Venezuelan or about demographic composition of Brazilian and Venezuelan populations???

By Brazilian census 45% of population are self declared mulattos/pardos/mamelucos/cafuzos and 8% are self declared blacks.

Venezuela seems have similar % of whites as Mexico but with greater % of mestizo population with greater mix between white and black genes.

In terms of genetic makeup more than 80% of Brazilian people have some “subsaharian genes”.

As badly as you want to believe it, I’m not black or part black. I’ve posted under a few different names on Unz in the past, and haven’t posted on anything relating to this topic since the summer. I used this name again because they were all continuations of a post about the Igbo, and things flowed better to use the same identifiable name. As hard as it is for you to believe, I have no personal stake about how “bad” blacks are. I believe in HBD and have no trouble believing they’re among the most violent, dysfunctional people in the world. The main contention has been this claim from Peter and Sean that they, along with the people of PNG, are the most extreme in those regards, and how this is mainly related to polygyny. My posts outside of this thread have said little about their violence or dysfunction.

It’s really hilarious how you make these personal accusations about me on top of accusing me of being some kind of “racist” against non-blacks. It’s ok to say terrible, “untrue” things about them but not other races, and there’s no way I could “defend” them like this unless I was black.

Regardless of what race you are, your motives clearly boil down to the fact you really despise them, and that there’s just something wrong with you.

No, we’re not comparing “races”, atleast like how you want to think. Human evolution can work remarkably fast, and the different ethnicities in the same broader racial group can differ greatly in behavior and outcomes. The americas have been inhabited for well over 10,000 years and have been populated by various groups of mongoloids in Siberia. That leaves more than enough time for plenty of dramatic divergences in behavior and intelligence. I was never talking about all amerinds/mestizos to begin with. The fact I originally said what I did about the “worst segments of Mexican society” just triggered something in you, and here we are.

In contrast, typical black africans originate from a small population about 10,000 years ago in the Sahara, and did not expand heavily outside of west africa until about 3,000 years ago. Africa was very sparsely inhabited, and by other african groups (variously like the ones described in Peter’s post). Even then, large parts of West Africa like Liberia and Guinea were sparsely inhabited until the middle ages. The broader similarity we see in black african populations is because they diverged and radiated outward in Africa quite recently in historic times.

Still, Mexico isn’t exactly a bad example given that it is the largest latin american country after Brazil, and the largest mestizo one. Colombia and Venezuela’s black ancestry isn’t as remarkable as you make it out to be. Distinct black populations in those countries are small in number (10% and 2.8% respectively, and Colombia counts mestizos too in that percentage), and there doesn’t exist the pervasive gradient with black ancestry like it does in Brazil. Even still, in both of those countries, the african ancestry is 13-16%. They’re both mostly european with the rest amerind. We should be focusing more on european and amerind ancestry in all of these countries.

Costa Rica and Chile are even whiter. The others likely don’t have as high of murder rates, but they’re also likely underreported. And again, we’re not talking about all amerinds.

Yes, crime and violence are pervasively high across SS africa, but they do vary considerably. Somalians/east africans are not typical black africans and look very different. They’re also worth considering for Peter and Sean given how they behave so similarly despite lower rates of monogamy. Ethiopia is quite bad too- it’s been christian for longer than most of Europe, but it’s murder rate is also very high, along with all of the general social strife.

I’m aware that hispanic-american immigrants (who again are mostly mexican) overwhelmingly come from the lower segments of mexican society, but note what I said about violence/sociopathy being concentrated in I said it multiple times. And no, their crime rates aren’t “drastically lower” and “aren’t even close”, they’re still pretty high for the most part. We again are talking mainly about mexicans, since aside from puerto ricans, other hispanic immigrants are far smaller in number. I’m not sure about the statistics on illegals, but I’ve never, ever bought the idea they commit less crimes than US citizens.

Through all this, I noticed you keep ignoring me saying the same things over and over again. And since you felt it worthwhile to bold that part of your post because I slandered the poor, poor segments of Mexico that become members of gangs and drug cartels, here’s what I originally said, bolded:

*I agree, sociopathy/propensity to violence can be concentrated in different segments of the population depending on where you look. The hispanic murder rate in the US is something like half (or less) that of african-americans, and there are many towns and cities in the US with large or predominantly hispanic populations with low or average homicide rates. I imagine it would be even lower if you excluded illegal immigrants, or considered solely mexican-americans. On the other hand, the worst segments of Mexican society I would say are much worse than what you often see in african-americans.*

The sentiment in the last sentence really seems to get to you. I hope me including that won’t cause you to keep making the same crazy, retarded accusations you spew out.

What happened to your admission of ” Perhaps some of that hatred is unjustified, and perhaps there are non-genetic reasons for the consistent dysfunction of the Black race wherever a representative sample is found,”? I didn’t deny they’re among the most hated- here’s what I said, bolded:

*Still, I agree in modern times there is a distinctive hatred of africans compared to most other racial groups (though the roma people have similar hatred in europe), but again, it’s not as objectively based as you like to make it out. All I’m really getting from you is “I just hate n*ggers.”*

And yeah, I am complaining about that sample size because it’s in a nation of OVER ONE HUNDRED MILLION. Do you even read what I post? Are you a troll or you this much of a desperate, fanatical moron? It doesn’t change the average of 89 we find for hispanics (who again are mostly mexican) in the US.

I’m aware of there being many learned, intelligent men who in the past had bad things to say about blacks, often times about the state of Africa that amounted to wordy proclamations that could be read as “those niggers, continent wide, were nothing but a bunch of stone age monkeys running around in the nude, eating eachother and living in mud huts/the bush/trees until the white man/arabs/berbers/etc. came along.”, which isn’t true at all. But no, that has hardly been the case universally. Early contacts between Portuguese and West Africans were very positive, and the Portuguese worked closely with the christianized people of Angola.

They can also be just patently untrue/crazy things in general, like Thomas Jefferson claiming that they’re “dull, tasteless, anomalous” and comparing them to the incredibly intelligent native americans, and how he’s never seen a single african exhibit any intelligent thought or any work of art whatsoever from them. Do you actually believe any of those things? Am I supposed to be particularly convinced because Thomas Jefferson said them, even if they’re blatantly untrue and crazy? But don’t you DARE say such things about non-blacks!

That quote from Francisco García Calderón is in ways just as bad. People like you like to focus on Haiti, even though no predominantly/heavily black carribbean country is as bad. Some, like Barbados, have high living standards and low crime rates, even though that does not change the general trend we see with black countries. One naturalist from back then isn’t particularly informative, and there’s no evidence (aside from hair texture/color and eye color) black traits are “dominant” in whites.

The last part you bolded is the craziest- amerind mestizos are few in number in Brazil, and I find it hard to believe they ever amounted to much. And the mestizos of Peru and Bolivia are “distinguished by their pride and virility” and are less unstable, apathetic and degenerated than mulattos. I mean, I’ll admit that Peru and Bolivia’s murder rates are probably much lower than the worst latin american countries, but again, it doesn’t have much to do with african ancestry, and again, I’m not talking about all mestizos and amerinds. But I always thought Peru and Bolivia were basically third world backwaters that have never amounted to much- what is there to support him hyping up the mestizos of those countries? Again, do you actually believe these things?

Lovecraft had a great imagination, but he clearly had mental issues. I imagine you’re one of the dark enlightenment types if you bother to fixate on what he thought about race.

Santoculto:

I am not talking about just population size, though. It is how “murders” are evaluated in these societies, which are overwhelmingly in tribal wars that often have a ritualistic component. I didn’t say it’s impossible to compare, but when we are talking about murder rates of close to 700, or really any that register in the hundreds, we cannot take those as comparable to how we judge murder rates in larger, more complex societies.

Sean:

I agree, and I didn’t say it was drift. I mainly mentioned drift in relation to facial structure/hair texture/coloration. I talk about the pygmies like this because things like heavy physical development, maturation etc. coexist with monogamy. You don’t have anything to say about their physical development, especially you originally claiming they’re weak. That guy also describes in the video and the description he’s seen plenty of toddlers/young children doing things like that. I’ve also read young pygmy children can climb trees all on their own. Why is this happening in such a monogamous people?

Nilotes aren’t as tall as you claim. The south sudanese ones are 5’8-5’9. That’s lower than many European countries and the same as South Koreans. Still, that’s without modern nutrition and living standards, so they’d probably be taller. But south sudanese nilotes are heavily lactose tolerant. Why aren’t Senegambians taller, going back to you original claim about them being the most extreme?

I keep bringing up non-”power” sports because they’re an example of how africans are highly deficient in other areas. “Power” doesn’t mean that in an absolute sense. It really begs asking why africans are proficient in sports requiring quick bursts of energy and that revolve around running and speed as opposed to things that require upper body strength and physiques associated with heavy lifting etc. East africans, particularly Keyans are an extreme, but an extension of physical traits suited for running and speed, and that region is heavily savannah, but west africa isn’t like that.

You keep mentioning the selection in south sudan, but still haven’t provided anything. You also haven’t presented anything else about Senegambians, or the Yanomamo, or Bougainville.
Just curious, but what do you think about australian aborigines in all of this? I don’t know anything about their marriage systems, but I’d imagine they were overwhelmingly monogamous since they were all stone age hunter-gatherers until Europeans arrived. They’re also as dark as black africans, and I think it’s fair to say they’re the least physically attractive of all living humans. I don’t know about their murder rates, but their crime rates are very high along with their general social dysfunction. I’ve heard their very thick skulls is related to a form of male dueling involving clubbing eachother in the head, but still, they don’t really fit what you talk about.

Jim:

Do you have any evidence of this? I’ve always gotten the impression the Aztecs were unique. I’ve never heard of much cannibalism in meso america, but cannibalism has been found throughout the Americas. I’ve heard it’s somehow related to protein deficiency, but I don’t know.

Aztecs were descendents of people emigrating from the north. Nahautl is an Uto-Aztecan language. The Aztec Empire was fairly new, only about a hundred years old at the time of Cortes.

I think that many authors on Meso-American civilizations tend to somewhat downplay the extent of human sacrifice and cannibalism. It's not a very pleasant subject. But one can't help but notice that much of Meso-American art is very gory. The Spanish conquisitadors, who were pretty tough son-of-a-bitches themselves, were genuinely shocked by the bloody nature of Meso-American cultures.

Barbados have 400 thousand people and Haiti have 20 million people. Barbados is part of British commonwealth, British empire past “echoes”. Also Barbados are financial paradise like Switzerland and Caymans Islands. And seems they have a good elite there.

Little cities tend to have little crime rates than bigger cities.

Sorry but you are talking some misconceptions here. Brazil are quintessentially a trirracial nation. Amerindian genes are very common among modern Brazilians.

8-10% of Brazilians declared themselves as black but 45% without leave into account this 8% of self declared blacks, are basically mulattos/ mamelucos ( black/amerindian), cafuzos ( white/ amerindian). And at least 70-80% of Brazilian population have at least some % of subsaharian genes.

No, Barbados has about 270,00 people and Haiti has ten million. I think Barbados is large enough population wise where you can judge it as it is and can’t really expect crime to change if the population was larger. It doesn’t really matter if the economy is largely based on tourism and banking, those countries are still stable with good living standards. They are able to sustain that way of life.

Until this argument, I didn’t know how large the amerind component of Brazilians was. However,

''It doesn’t really matter if the economy is largely based on tourism and banking, those countries are still stable with good living standards. They are able to sustain that way of life.''

Refresh your memory

''European countries development happen JUST because they inherited other civilization achievements of middle east''

More honesty, please, IF you don't think like that about ''western civilization'', good for you and for us and sorry again.

Again (or not), we inherit a LIMITED behavioral plasticity which are partially influenced by circumstances. Some people are unable to hurt physically other people, in other hand, other people will be very susceptible to do it. Some people will be susceptible just by ''special'' circumstances, tolerance and reciprocity for engagement for some behavior.

Barbadian immigrants in USA are more violent than barbadians in Barbados*

Barbados have 400 thousand people and Haiti have 20 million people. Barbados is part of British commonwealth, British empire past "echoes". Also Barbados are financial paradise like Switzerland and Caymans Islands. And seems they have a good elite there.

Little cities tend to have little crime rates than bigger cities.

Sorry but you are talking some misconceptions here. Brazil are quintessentially a trirracial nation. Amerindian genes are very common among modern Brazilians.

8-10% of Brazilians declared themselves as black but 45% without leave into account this 8% of self declared blacks, are basically mulattos/ mamelucos ( black/amerindian), cafuzos ( white/ amerindian). And at least 70-80% of Brazilian population have at least some % of subsaharian genes.

”mamelucos ( black/amerindian), cafuzos ( white/ amerindian)”

Sorry,
is the otherwise, i commit a mistake too. (like right and left, )

As badly as you want to believe it, I'm not black or part black. I've posted under a few different names on Unz in the past, and haven't posted on anything relating to this topic since the summer. I used this name again because they were all continuations of a post about the Igbo, and things flowed better to use the same identifiable name. As hard as it is for you to believe, I have no personal stake about how "bad" blacks are. I believe in HBD and have no trouble believing they're among the most violent, dysfunctional people in the world. The main contention has been this claim from Peter and Sean that they, along with the people of PNG, are the most extreme in those regards, and how this is mainly related to polygyny. My posts outside of this thread have said little about their violence or dysfunction.

It's really hilarious how you make these personal accusations about me on top of accusing me of being some kind of "racist" against non-blacks. It's ok to say terrible, "untrue" things about them but not other races, and there's no way I could "defend" them like this unless I was black.

Regardless of what race you are, your motives clearly boil down to the fact you really despise them, and that there's just something wrong with you.

No, we're not comparing "races", atleast like how you want to think. Human evolution can work remarkably fast, and the different ethnicities in the same broader racial group can differ greatly in behavior and outcomes. The americas have been inhabited for well over 10,000 years and have been populated by various groups of mongoloids in Siberia. That leaves more than enough time for plenty of dramatic divergences in behavior and intelligence. I was never talking about all amerinds/mestizos to begin with. The fact I originally said what I did about the "worst segments of Mexican society" just triggered something in you, and here we are.

In contrast, typical black africans originate from a small population about 10,000 years ago in the Sahara, and did not expand heavily outside of west africa until about 3,000 years ago. Africa was very sparsely inhabited, and by other african groups (variously like the ones described in Peter's post). Even then, large parts of West Africa like Liberia and Guinea were sparsely inhabited until the middle ages. The broader similarity we see in black african populations is because they diverged and radiated outward in Africa quite recently in historic times.

Still, Mexico isn't exactly a bad example given that it is the largest latin american country after Brazil, and the largest mestizo one. Colombia and Venezuela's black ancestry isn't as remarkable as you make it out to be. Distinct black populations in those countries are small in number (10% and 2.8% respectively, and Colombia counts mestizos too in that percentage), and there doesn't exist the pervasive gradient with black ancestry like it does in Brazil. Even still, in both of those countries, the african ancestry is 13-16%. They're both mostly european with the rest amerind. We should be focusing more on european and amerind ancestry in all of these countries.

Costa Rica and Chile are even whiter. The others likely don't have as high of murder rates, but they're also likely underreported. And again, we're not talking about all amerinds.

Yes, crime and violence are pervasively high across SS africa, but they do vary considerably. Somalians/east africans are not typical black africans and look very different. They're also worth considering for Peter and Sean given how they behave so similarly despite lower rates of monogamy. Ethiopia is quite bad too- it's been christian for longer than most of Europe, but it's murder rate is also very high, along with all of the general social strife.

I'm aware that hispanic-american immigrants (who again are mostly mexican) overwhelmingly come from the lower segments of mexican society, but note what I said about violence/sociopathy being concentrated in I said it multiple times. And no, their crime rates aren't "drastically lower" and "aren't even close", they're still pretty high for the most part. We again are talking mainly about mexicans, since aside from puerto ricans, other hispanic immigrants are far smaller in number. I'm not sure about the statistics on illegals, but I've never, ever bought the idea they commit less crimes than US citizens.

Through all this, I noticed you keep ignoring me saying the same things over and over again. And since you felt it worthwhile to bold that part of your post because I slandered the poor, poor segments of Mexico that become members of gangs and drug cartels, here's what I originally said, bolded:

*I agree, sociopathy/propensity to violence can be concentrated in different segments of the population depending on where you look. The hispanic murder rate in the US is something like half (or less) that of african-americans, and there are many towns and cities in the US with large or predominantly hispanic populations with low or average homicide rates. I imagine it would be even lower if you excluded illegal immigrants, or considered solely mexican-americans. On the other hand, the worst segments of Mexican society I would say are much worse than what you often see in african-americans.*

The sentiment in the last sentence really seems to get to you. I hope me including that won't cause you to keep making the same crazy, retarded accusations you spew out.

What happened to your admission of " Perhaps some of that hatred is unjustified, and perhaps there are non-genetic reasons for the consistent dysfunction of the Black race wherever a representative sample is found,"? I didn't deny they're among the most hated- here's what I said, bolded:

*Still, I agree in modern times there is a distinctive hatred of africans compared to most other racial groups (though the roma people have similar hatred in europe), but again, it’s not as objectively based as you like to make it out. All I’m really getting from you is “I just hate n*ggers.”*

And yeah, I am complaining about that sample size because it's in a nation of OVER ONE HUNDRED MILLION. Do you even read what I post? Are you a troll or you this much of a desperate, fanatical moron? It doesn't change the average of 89 we find for hispanics (who again are mostly mexican) in the US.

Puerto Ricans are mostly european and native american: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Puerto_Rico#Genetic_studies

Mexicans are under 10% african, but really.

I'm aware of there being many learned, intelligent men who in the past had bad things to say about blacks, often times about the state of Africa that amounted to wordy proclamations that could be read as "those niggers, continent wide, were nothing but a bunch of stone age monkeys running around in the nude, eating eachother and living in mud huts/the bush/trees until the white man/arabs/berbers/etc. came along.", which isn't true at all. But no, that has hardly been the case universally. Early contacts between Portuguese and West Africans were very positive, and the Portuguese worked closely with the christianized people of Angola.

They can also be just patently untrue/crazy things in general, like Thomas Jefferson claiming that they're "dull, tasteless, anomalous" and comparing them to the incredibly intelligent native americans, and how he's never seen a single african exhibit any intelligent thought or any work of art whatsoever from them. Do you actually believe any of those things? Am I supposed to be particularly convinced because Thomas Jefferson said them, even if they're blatantly untrue and crazy? But don't you DARE say such things about non-blacks!

That quote from Francisco García Calderón is in ways just as bad. People like you like to focus on Haiti, even though no predominantly/heavily black carribbean country is as bad. Some, like Barbados, have high living standards and low crime rates, even though that does not change the general trend we see with black countries. One naturalist from back then isn't particularly informative, and there's no evidence (aside from hair texture/color and eye color) black traits are "dominant" in whites.

The last part you bolded is the craziest- amerind mestizos are few in number in Brazil, and I find it hard to believe they ever amounted to much. And the mestizos of Peru and Bolivia are "distinguished by their pride and virility" and are less unstable, apathetic and degenerated than mulattos. I mean, I'll admit that Peru and Bolivia's murder rates are probably much lower than the worst latin american countries, but again, it doesn't have much to do with african ancestry, and again, I'm not talking about all mestizos and amerinds. But I always thought Peru and Bolivia were basically third world backwaters that have never amounted to much- what is there to support him hyping up the mestizos of those countries? Again, do you actually believe these things?

Lovecraft had a great imagination, but he clearly had mental issues. I imagine you're one of the dark enlightenment types if you bother to fixate on what he thought about race.

Santoculto:

I am not talking about just population size, though. It is how "murders" are evaluated in these societies, which are overwhelmingly in tribal wars that often have a ritualistic component. I didn't say it's impossible to compare, but when we are talking about murder rates of close to 700, or really any that register in the hundreds, we cannot take those as comparable to how we judge murder rates in larger, more complex societies.

Sean:

I agree, and I didn't say it was drift. I mainly mentioned drift in relation to facial structure/hair texture/coloration. I talk about the pygmies like this because things like heavy physical development, maturation etc. coexist with monogamy. You don't have anything to say about their physical development, especially you originally claiming they're weak. That guy also describes in the video and the description he's seen plenty of toddlers/young children doing things like that. I've also read young pygmy children can climb trees all on their own. Why is this happening in such a monogamous people?

Nilotes aren't as tall as you claim. The south sudanese ones are 5'8-5'9. That's lower than many European countries and the same as South Koreans. Still, that's without modern nutrition and living standards, so they'd probably be taller. But south sudanese nilotes are heavily lactose tolerant. Why aren't Senegambians taller, going back to you original claim about them being the most extreme?

I keep bringing up non-"power" sports because they're an example of how africans are highly deficient in other areas. "Power" doesn't mean that in an absolute sense. It really begs asking why africans are proficient in sports requiring quick bursts of energy and that revolve around running and speed as opposed to things that require upper body strength and physiques associated with heavy lifting etc. East africans, particularly Keyans are an extreme, but an extension of physical traits suited for running and speed, and that region is heavily savannah, but west africa isn't like that.

You keep mentioning the selection in south sudan, but still haven't provided anything. You also haven't presented anything else about Senegambians, or the Yanomamo, or Bougainville.Just curious, but what do you think about australian aborigines in all of this? I don't know anything about their marriage systems, but I'd imagine they were overwhelmingly monogamous since they were all stone age hunter-gatherers until Europeans arrived. They're also as dark as black africans, and I think it's fair to say they're the least physically attractive of all living humans. I don't know about their murder rates, but their crime rates are very high along with their general social dysfunction. I've heard their very thick skulls is related to a form of male dueling involving clubbing eachother in the head, but still, they don't really fit what you talk about.

Jim:

Do you have any evidence of this? I've always gotten the impression the Aztecs were unique. I've never heard of much cannibalism in meso america, but cannibalism has been found throughout the Americas. I've heard it's somehow related to protein deficiency, but I don't know.

Aztecs were descendents of people emigrating from the north. Nahautl is an Uto-Aztecan language. The Aztec Empire was fairly new, only about a hundred years old at the time of Cortes.

I think that many authors on Meso-American civilizations tend to somewhat downplay the extent of human sacrifice and cannibalism. It’s not a very pleasant subject. But one can’t help but notice that much of Meso-American art is very gory. The Spanish conquisitadors, who were pretty tough son-of-a-bitches themselves, were genuinely shocked by the bloody nature of Meso-American cultures.

They kept written records. Hundreds of different goods that were due as tribute. They even counted the number of feathers that were due.

Yes, Meso-Americans had tributary relations but compared to civilizations of the Ancient Near East they seemed far more inclined to genocidal violence. If you were a ruler conquered by the Hittities you became a vassal of the Hittite King. If you were the ruler of a city conquered in Meso-American your heart was ripped out of your living body and consumed by your conquerer.

References would be helpful. I am aware human sacrifice predated the Aztecs for sure, but I have never heard of anything comparable to them.

Santoculto:

10 vs. 20 million is a big difference. Haiti has worse living standards than many african countries. Even the most crime-ridden, impoverish black majority/significant minority countries in carribbean do not approach it. Jamaica, one of them, actually has a good deal of modern infrastructure, national industries, and has actually produced some worthwhile things culturally. Nothing similar could be said of Haiti.

And I meant that the level of social cohesion and general living standards are sustained in these countries even if the reason for economy being as prosperous as it is isn't likely due to much ingenuity on the part of black populace. They're nothing like South Africa. Even the ones that are not tourist spots/tax havens do not approach Haiti's dysfunction.

Do you have any evidence Barbadian immigrants in the US are more violent?

Truth:

It really doesn't matter if MS-13 originated in that fashion. Blaming african-americans for it is crazy. It doesn't say much good about the El Salvadorans if what began as something to protect their people grew into something worse than the african-american gangs that attacked their people.

Oh, and here's El Salvador's recorded murder rate from that link about the Dominican Republic I posted:

"2010, it had a homicide rate of 24.9 per 100,000, far below those of Honduras (82.1), El Salvador (66), Jamaica (52.1), Trinidad and Tobago (35.2) and Belize (41.7),"

It's worse than majority/heavily black countries Jamaica, T&T and Belize. That could help explain why MS-13 formed as it did.

I think that many authors on Meso-American civilizations tend to somewhat downplay the extent of human sacrifice and cannibalism.

I think that you are correct here, and it was not my intent to downplay this in any way. I just meant that my understanding is that they had a very well developed client state and tributary system. (You no doubt know that the exploitation of this system by Cortez was one of the keys to his success.) I have never read of any culture that approaches the industrial scale human sacrifice and cannibalism that was there in Mexica. I have a book on Cahokia in my reading queue; I hope the author addresses any possible direct connection to the Aztecs. You mention the ME and the Hittites. Instead of a straight chronological comparison it might be beneficial to think in terms of before agriculture and after. I guess the smart scholars do this already. Certainly we know that there was human sacrifice in many different cultures, whether it approached the extent of the ritual cannibalism of the Aztecs we don’t know. If someone from 1000 BC had passed through 10,000 BC ME and gave us a report we might have a different opinion. I haven’t read enough to state that all civilizations passed through the human sacrifice stage, but it sure seems like a good bet.

No, Barbados has about 270,00 people and Haiti has ten million. I think Barbados is large enough population wise where you can judge it as it is and can't really expect crime to change if the population was larger. It doesn't really matter if the economy is largely based on tourism and banking, those countries are still stable with good living standards. They are able to sustain that way of life.

Until this argument, I didn't know how large the amerind component of Brazilians was. However,

For what it's worth, in relation to the nutty claims about the high african ancestry in Venezuelans/Colombians/Puerto Ricans and that it matters for much, the Dominican Republic has a lower murder rate than many other latin american countries, and it's doubtful underreporting is that severe, given that it's not as unstable and corrupt as the others: http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/dominican-republic-the-chronicle-of-an-unreported-death

Puerto Rico has similar or higher rates to the DR, despite the black ancestry being largely in reverse.

”It doesn’t really matter if the economy is largely based on tourism and banking, those countries are still stable with good living standards. They are able to sustain that way of life.”

Refresh your memory

”European countries development happen JUST because they inherited other civilization achievements of middle east”

More honesty, please, IF you don’t think like that about ”western civilization”, good for you and for us and sorry again.

Again (or not), we inherit a LIMITED behavioral plasticity which are partially influenced by circumstances. Some people are unable to hurt physically other people, in other hand, other people will be very susceptible to do it. Some people will be susceptible just by ”special” circumstances, tolerance and reciprocity for engagement for some behavior.

Barbadian immigrants in USA are more violent than barbadians in Barbados*

The Mara Salvatrucha gang originated in Los Angeles, set up in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants in the city's Pico-Union neighborhood who immigrated to the United States after the Central American civil wars of the 1980s.[8][9]

Originally, the gang's main purpose was to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other, more established gangs of Los Angeles, who were predominantly composed of Mexicans and African-Americans.[10]

Originally, the gang’s main purpose was to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other, more established gangs of Los Angeles, who were predominantly composed of Mexicans and African-</blockquo

Poor semantics by the writer, other gangs in LA were comprised of Mexicans and African-Americans, but in the East LA, East Hollywood areas in which the Salvadoreans settled were Mexican Mafia turf, very few blacks around.

Eventually they joined the Mexican Cartel which is what the 13 stands for.

Yes, Meso-Americans had tributary relations but compared to civilizations of the Ancient Near East they seemed far more inclined to genocidal violence. If you were a ruler conquered by the Hittities you became a vassal of the Hittite King. If you were the ruler of a city conquered in Meso-American your heart was ripped out of your living body and consumed by your conquerer.

References would be helpful. I am aware human sacrifice predated the Aztecs for sure, but I have never heard of anything comparable to them.

Santoculto:

10 vs. 20 million is a big difference. Haiti has worse living standards than many african countries. Even the most crime-ridden, impoverish black majority/significant minority countries in carribbean do not approach it. Jamaica, one of them, actually has a good deal of modern infrastructure, national industries, and has actually produced some worthwhile things culturally. Nothing similar could be said of Haiti.

And I meant that the level of social cohesion and general living standards are sustained in these countries even if the reason for economy being as prosperous as it is isn’t likely due to much ingenuity on the part of black populace. They’re nothing like South Africa. Even the ones that are not tourist spots/tax havens do not approach Haiti’s dysfunction.

Do you have any evidence Barbadian immigrants in the US are more violent?

Truth:

It really doesn’t matter if MS-13 originated in that fashion. Blaming african-americans for it is crazy. It doesn’t say much good about the El Salvadorans if what began as something to protect their people grew into something worse than the african-american gangs that attacked their people.

Oh, and here’s El Salvador’s recorded murder rate from that link about the Dominican Republic I posted:

“2010, it had a homicide rate of 24.9 per 100,000, far below those of Honduras (82.1), El Salvador (66), Jamaica (52.1), Trinidad and Tobago (35.2) and Belize (41.7),”

It’s worse than majority/heavily black countries Jamaica, T&T and Belize. That could help explain why MS-13 formed as it did.

10 vs 20 million is like 500 thousand vs 1 million, don't look higher, and most of countries with this population size (10-30 million) no seems have greater difference in similar space/time/human-bio among them.

''Haiti has worse living standards than many african countries. Even the most crime-ridden, impoverish black majority/significant minority countries in carribbean do not approach it.''

But Haiti ''still' will have a ''african living standard'', that many is not the same that most. In globalization era, smart nations or with smart and zealous elites, look for successful countries and repeat same formula of capitalistic success. (when some geniuses and/or wises are in certain elites, they can improve living standard without copy everything and invent new paths to the long term social sustainability... will be copyed).

''Jamaica, one of them, actually has a good deal of modern infrastructure, national industries, and has actually produced some worthwhile things culturally. Nothing similar could be said of Haiti.''

Yes is much better but not so much. Haiti look like a typical african nation while Jamaica look like a Nicaragua in their best days. But criminality in Jamaica seems higher than US for example.

''And I meant that the level of social cohesion and general living standards are sustained in these countries even if the reason for economy being as prosperous as it is isn’t likely due to much ingenuity on the part of black populace. They’re nothing like South Africa. Even the ones that are not tourist spots/tax havens do not approach Haiti’s dysfunction.''

South Africa exceptionality can be in large part assigned to the non-black population and possibly minority of functional and smart black ones.

''Do you have any evidence Barbadian immigrants in the US are more violent?''

I believe in HBD and have no trouble believing they’re among the most violent, dysfunctional people in the world. The main contention has been this claim from Peter and Sean that they, along with the people of PNG, are the most extreme in those regards, and how this is mainly related to polygyny.

I never made that claim. Violence has many causes, some of which are softwired (culture, ideology) and some hardwired (predispositions, personality traits, etc.).

I don’t believe that African Americans, or Africans anywhere, are inherently dysfunctional. In 1960, African Americans had much lower rates of personal violence than they do today. You also gave the example of Black Barbadians (although what you say is truer for “old school” Barbadians). So the “outer” cultural environment is just as important as the “inner” biological environment.

In 1960, African Americans were less violent than they are today, particularly young AA men. This was so because 80% of them were raised in homes where both parents were present. They also lived in neighborhoods where neighbors would actually intervene to control unruly behavior. Finally, religion was much more present. It controlled behavior from within (fear of God, guilt) and without (peer pressure, behavioral norms set by church-sponsored youth groups, etc.).

Today, all of that has changed. The liberalization of the 1960s was catastrophic for African Americans because they had never adapted to a highly individualistic, socially atomized society. For the past thousand years, we in the West have been pushing the limits of individualism and have suffered its toxic effects, but the consequences are much more serious for humans who have never adapted to that kind of social environment.

Barring them[Papuan New Guineans] returning to a purely stone age context with minimal agriculture, you really think a literal murder rate like that would be widely seen if those minor controls dissolved, or that it would increase much in an absolute sense at all?

That experiment is being carried out. The preliminary results are not very promising:

The crime rate in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is considered among the highest in the world. Carjackings, armed robberies, and stoning of vehicles are problems in/around major cities but can also occur elsewhere. You are more vulnerable to robbery or rape when traveling alone. The high rate of crime, to include those committed by the infamous “Raskol” gangs, can be opportunistic in nature. Sophisticated criminal enterprises do exist, and their capabilities often exceed that of local enforcement authorities.

Expatriate women should take caution not to dress provocatively. Local women typically do not wear revealing clothing. Women are at a higher risk for sexual assault. As such, women should avoid traveling alone. Travel in groups or with a guide. Be cautious of displays of wealth; do not carry anything with you that you are not willing to part with if confronted. Expatriates may be perceived as wealthy, potentially making them targets of opportunity for criminals.

About”African component” in Brazil. You are talking about genetic composition of average Brazilian (trirracial) and average Venezuelan or about demographic composition of Brazilian and Venezuelan populations???

I mean the average Brazilian. If you could blend all Brazilians into one person, how African would that person be? I remember reading a study that found that the African contribution to the Brazilian gene pool is less than what people think. Even in Bahia, it was only 25-30%.

Have you ever examined polyandry? How common it is, where and how it tends to arise, the dynamics of it, etc? That might be an interesting topic for a future post.

It’s uncommon on a worldwide basis. High rates of polyandry have only been found in Tibet and some hill tribes in India. It usually involves two brothers sharing the same wife.

Polyandry is rare because women start off contributing more to reproduction than men do (pregnancy, breastfeeding, early infant care). So they stay off the mate market for longer periods of time.

But don’t you DARE say such things about non-blacks!

A lot of commenters here have no inhibitions against saying such things about Hispanics.

I know you haven't explicitly made that claim, but you have multiple times compared the measured "murder rate" of tribal papuans to the murder rates in medieval britain, which even at their highest are still far lower than the face value rate of PNG tribes.

I am aware of crime in PNG, but your link does not say much about the continued or impending collapse or erosion of PNG's government. As I said, in many parts of PNG, government control and modern civilization are meager enough as it is, and I don't think much is being held back, nevermind the issue of extrapolating murder rates.

I agree with your assessment about africans and didn't mean to make that explicit claim about inherent dysfunction, but that is roughly what we see. And you seemed harsher towards them initially the way you spoke of how their murder rate would be higher.

I haven't encountered these things about hispanics from others here, but I haven't been trying to say wrongfully negative things about them. I hope I've made it clear to most people I am not talking about all hispanics. Amerind ancestry does not seem to be an especially clear cut factor in crime or social cohesion, nevermind the original white populations in question or whatever social selection has happened over the past several hundred years in the americas.

What about differences between European and Mediterranean men in aggressiveness and sexual competitiveness? Are these differences the result of differences in polygyny in the past, or do you suppose other factors are at play?

Western girls also quickly realised that it was in Greece, where they could satisfy their sexual frustrations. According to Klouvas, the men who visited Greece from abroad were no match for the Greeks for one simple reason:

“In order for a European to approach a woman he’d need to have three or four drinks in him. We were hot-blooded, audacious Mediterranean men. We didn’t need to drink. We’d cut to the chase straight away and that would flatter the women. Plus, as a rule, we’d never hit on a woman if we stank of alcohol”.

References would be helpful. I am aware human sacrifice predated the Aztecs for sure, but I have never heard of anything comparable to them.

Santoculto:

10 vs. 20 million is a big difference. Haiti has worse living standards than many african countries. Even the most crime-ridden, impoverish black majority/significant minority countries in carribbean do not approach it. Jamaica, one of them, actually has a good deal of modern infrastructure, national industries, and has actually produced some worthwhile things culturally. Nothing similar could be said of Haiti.

And I meant that the level of social cohesion and general living standards are sustained in these countries even if the reason for economy being as prosperous as it is isn't likely due to much ingenuity on the part of black populace. They're nothing like South Africa. Even the ones that are not tourist spots/tax havens do not approach Haiti's dysfunction.

Do you have any evidence Barbadian immigrants in the US are more violent?

Truth:

It really doesn't matter if MS-13 originated in that fashion. Blaming african-americans for it is crazy. It doesn't say much good about the El Salvadorans if what began as something to protect their people grew into something worse than the african-american gangs that attacked their people.

Oh, and here's El Salvador's recorded murder rate from that link about the Dominican Republic I posted:

"2010, it had a homicide rate of 24.9 per 100,000, far below those of Honduras (82.1), El Salvador (66), Jamaica (52.1), Trinidad and Tobago (35.2) and Belize (41.7),"

It's worse than majority/heavily black countries Jamaica, T&T and Belize. That could help explain why MS-13 formed as it did.

”10 vs. 20 million is a big difference.”

Big difference= 10 vs 40 million,

10 vs 20 million is like 500 thousand vs 1 million, don’t look higher, and most of countries with this population size (10-30 million) no seems have greater difference in similar space/time/human-bio among them.

”Haiti has worse living standards than many african countries. Even the most crime-ridden, impoverish black majority/significant minority countries in carribbean do not approach it.”

But Haiti ”still’ will have a ”african living standard”, that many is not the same that most. In globalization era, smart nations or with smart and zealous elites, look for successful countries and repeat same formula of capitalistic success. (when some geniuses and/or wises are in certain elites, they can improve living standard without copy everything and invent new paths to the long term social sustainability… will be copyed).

”Jamaica, one of them, actually has a good deal of modern infrastructure, national industries, and has actually produced some worthwhile things culturally. Nothing similar could be said of Haiti.”

Yes is much better but not so much. Haiti look like a typical african nation while Jamaica look like a Nicaragua in their best days. But criminality in Jamaica seems higher than US for example.

”And I meant that the level of social cohesion and general living standards are sustained in these countries even if the reason for economy being as prosperous as it is isn’t likely due to much ingenuity on the part of black populace. They’re nothing like South Africa. Even the ones that are not tourist spots/tax havens do not approach Haiti’s dysfunction.”

South Africa exceptionality can be in large part assigned to the non-black population and possibly minority of functional and smart black ones.

”Do you have any evidence Barbadian immigrants in the US are more violent?”

I believe in HBD and have no trouble believing they’re among the most violent, dysfunctional people in the world. The main contention has been this claim from Peter and Sean that they, along with the people of PNG, are the most extreme in those regards, and how this is mainly related to polygyny.

I never made that claim. Violence has many causes, some of which are softwired (culture, ideology) and some hardwired (predispositions, personality traits, etc.).

I don't believe that African Americans, or Africans anywhere, are inherently dysfunctional. In 1960, African Americans had much lower rates of personal violence than they do today. You also gave the example of Black Barbadians (although what you say is truer for "old school" Barbadians). So the "outer" cultural environment is just as important as the "inner" biological environment.

In 1960, African Americans were less violent than they are today, particularly young AA men. This was so because 80% of them were raised in homes where both parents were present. They also lived in neighborhoods where neighbors would actually intervene to control unruly behavior. Finally, religion was much more present. It controlled behavior from within (fear of God, guilt) and without (peer pressure, behavioral norms set by church-sponsored youth groups, etc.).

Today, all of that has changed. The liberalization of the 1960s was catastrophic for African Americans because they had never adapted to a highly individualistic, socially atomized society. For the past thousand years, we in the West have been pushing the limits of individualism and have suffered its toxic effects, but the consequences are much more serious for humans who have never adapted to that kind of social environment.

Barring them[Papuan New Guineans] returning to a purely stone age context with minimal agriculture, you really think a literal murder rate like that would be widely seen if those minor controls dissolved, or that it would increase much in an absolute sense at all?

That experiment is being carried out. The preliminary results are not very promising:

The crime rate in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is considered among the highest in the world. Carjackings, armed robberies, and stoning of vehicles are problems in/around major cities but can also occur elsewhere. You are more vulnerable to robbery or rape when traveling alone. The high rate of crime, to include those committed by the infamous “Raskol” gangs, can be opportunistic in nature. Sophisticated criminal enterprises do exist, and their capabilities often exceed that of local enforcement authorities.

Expatriate women should take caution not to dress provocatively. Local women typically do not wear revealing clothing. Women are at a higher risk for sexual assault. As such, women should avoid traveling alone. Travel in groups or with a guide. Be cautious of displays of wealth; do not carry anything with you that you are not willing to part with if confronted. Expatriates may be perceived as wealthy, potentially making them targets of opportunity for criminals.

https://www.osac.gov/pages/ContentReportDetails.aspx?cid=17301

About”African component” in Brazil. You are talking about genetic composition of average Brazilian (trirracial) and average Venezuelan or about demographic composition of Brazilian and Venezuelan populations???

I mean the average Brazilian. If you could blend all Brazilians into one person, how African would that person be? I remember reading a study that found that the African contribution to the Brazilian gene pool is less than what people think. Even in Bahia, it was only 25-30%.

Have you ever examined polyandry? How common it is, where and how it tends to arise, the dynamics of it, etc? That might be an interesting topic for a future post.

It's uncommon on a worldwide basis. High rates of polyandry have only been found in Tibet and some hill tribes in India. It usually involves two brothers sharing the same wife.

Polyandry is rare because women start off contributing more to reproduction than men do (pregnancy, breastfeeding, early infant care). So they stay off the mate market for longer periods of time.

But don’t you DARE say such things about non-blacks!

A lot of commenters here have no inhibitions against saying such things about Hispanics.

Or Jews, Jews, Jews (I've been lucky this time)

I know you haven’t explicitly made that claim, but you have multiple times compared the measured “murder rate” of tribal papuans to the murder rates in medieval britain, which even at their highest are still far lower than the face value rate of PNG tribes.

I am aware of crime in PNG, but your link does not say much about the continued or impending collapse or erosion of PNG’s government. As I said, in many parts of PNG, government control and modern civilization are meager enough as it is, and I don’t think much is being held back, nevermind the issue of extrapolating murder rates.

I agree with your assessment about africans and didn’t mean to make that explicit claim about inherent dysfunction, but that is roughly what we see. And you seemed harsher towards them initially the way you spoke of how their murder rate would be higher.

I haven’t encountered these things about hispanics from others here, but I haven’t been trying to say wrongfully negative things about them. I hope I’ve made it clear to most people I am not talking about all hispanics. Amerind ancestry does not seem to be an especially clear cut factor in crime or social cohesion, nevermind the original white populations in question or whatever social selection has happened over the past several hundred years in the americas.

The main issue is do polygynous descended people have different outcomes to Europeans on average. In the UK and US crime rates are higher, on average, for the descendants of polygynous peoples. In the UK and US the whites have lower rates of crime, family instability that blacks, and in the US probably even 2nd or third generation assimilated Mexicans, because statistics show a trend of downward assimilation.

The post was just offering an explanation for different rates in different people. It is not a case of being harsh to say that people from other cultures have worse outcomes when assimilated to European culture. If anything it is an argument for multiculturalism. "Amerind ancestry does not seem to be an especially clear cut factor in crime or social cohesion"is saying it is all culture, so it would be all culture for blacks too.

Murder rates in small, primitive tribal contexts are not comparable or extrapolable to more complex contexts. You cannot expect whatsoever a "murder rate" of over 600 to be literally sustained beyond the setting of a stone age tribal one, or that it's even accurate to think of that as a murder rate comparable to anything in a more complex society. There are far fewer people in those papuan societies, and any murder (or more accurately, death in war) in a small setting like that is going to register in an absolute sense as a very high murder rate. At the same time, the mindset and dynamics behind "murder" are not the same in an absolute sense compared to modern ones. This is what led Pinker (and seemingly you) to extrapolate these in a literal sense and act like one murder in a group of small tribal bands is truly comparable to something like mass murder in a more advanced setting, among other things. If one person commits a murder in a band of 100 people, that murder rate would register as 100/100k. In terms of proportions, that person is a mass murderer. But it's very doubtful that person is as sociopathic as an actual mass murderer and they'd have the capacity to commit it in a bigger population, or that many people would see them as comparable to one. That is what we're talking about when we look at killings in stone age tribal villages.

Imagine a scenario in which a few hundred people of european descent were stranded on a deserted island. They form a small society. Over time, a few get killed here and there over personal quarrels. They in essence aren't that different from what is seen back in their home countries, which all have low murder rates. But given the small population and the proportion of murders, they would register a murder rate radically higher. You could come up with other similar examples, like a village of a few hundred or so where from time to time a few people get murdered. Owing to the small population, the murder rate would be registered as very high, but you can't expect this to be sustained in the same sense beyond this setting or that the dynamics of violence/sociopathy/etc. can be magnified so readily.

Your comparison with how people in the new guinea highlands engage in war is kind of disingenuous. Any tribal war for people that primitive with such small populations is going to register high "murder" rates, and would often manifest with what are in reality very petty reasons.

Papua New Guinea is a very poor, undeveloped country, and even the parts exposed to modernity are usually backwards. Government control and influence is marginal and people often have few modern amenities. Barring them returning to a purely stone age context with minimal agriculture, you really think a literal murder rate like that would be widely seen if those minor controls dissolved, or that it would increase much in an absolute sense at all?

The point about the pygmies was that I do not think, given what has been documented about them behavior wise, that murder rate (which would probably be higher than african-americans) would literally sustain itself in a larger, more complex setting. I should have clarified this a bit more aside from the example with women, though. There are settled pygmy communities where people have some modern amenities and the people number in the thousands, and I doubt the murder rate is literally as high, or high at all. At the same time, the extreme gender equality likely hasn't sustained itself and there are more than likely a few women who over time have been murdered by men. The mechanisms and dynamics behind behaviors in small, primitive tribal contexts are usually very different from those of people in larger, more complex settings. But through all this, I don't really think it's monogamy why the pygmies are so non-violent.

I didn't say modern police can't deter crime. However, the extent of how much it can deter it is. At an extreme, it can prevent a remarkable amount of crime if it's completely totalitarian and all encompassing and targets any slight with extreme repercussions (like what you see in North Korea), but beyond that, it isn't as clear. Tight policing can variously exacerbate crime, and what would be helpful is if you could compare the african-american murder rate before it peaked and it led to a larger incarceration that ultimately lowered the rate to now. It mainly peaked when drug use was in full-swing (an exception you again only allowed for latin americans), similar to what is seen in latin america, but is there any indication it was really that higher before modern policing and other modern controls?

You make a good point about the murder rate in the US before modern medical technology, but I'm not entirely convinced. I've seen other data and arguments to indicate murder rates would be higher without modern technology (and this is the case in third world countries.)

I see what you mean about the influence of the church, but you were claiming even now, they are strong contingencies against higher murder rates, and I don't think that's very accurate.

"Yes, that’s State-organized violence. The State can kill far more people than can individuals acting on their own."

Uh.... the people who kill POW's, civilians, engage in brutal torture etc. are still individual soldiers and such. You continually act like the violence we've seen in the past during war or various states of it, where atrocities and such were committed at far greater frequencies than we see now, can be distinctively parsed from behavior in the regular social sphere, that they aren't indicative of behavior outside of war. There is no reason to believe this.

I think it's debatable if underreporting is on the whole worse. I have seen murder statistics far african countries that are unbelievably low, but other times much higher ones. On the other hand, international agencies have routinely ranked various latin american countries as among the most dangerous in the world outside of warzones, moreso than many african ones, in spite of whatever underreporting there is. We get higher recorded murder rates than many african countries in places like Honduras, with plenty of indication there are heavily underreported, even before the spikes in the drug trade.

I'm not denying what the UN report said. My point is that the presence of organized crime networks means male violence is concentrated in different realms, and we'd very likely see far higher violence against women without them. We already see plenty even with their presence.

Venezuela and Brazil do not in any way have similar makeups. The african Venezuelan might have significant african ancestry, but it's not comparable to Brazil. The black ancestry is much more pervasive and widespread in Brazil, and heavily african individuals are much more common. The "black" population in Venezuela is under 3%. Brazilians have very little amerind ancestry, and the amerind population is very small and mostly found in the rainforest regions.

“aren’t indicative of behavior outside of war”

An interesting example in this regard is the horrific atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers in WWII contrasted with the low rate of violence in Japanese society.

I believe in HBD and have no trouble believing they’re among the most violent, dysfunctional people in the world. The main contention has been this claim from Peter and Sean that they, along with the people of PNG, are the most extreme in those regards, and how this is mainly related to polygyny.

I never made that claim. Violence has many causes, some of which are softwired (culture, ideology) and some hardwired (predispositions, personality traits, etc.).

I don't believe that African Americans, or Africans anywhere, are inherently dysfunctional. In 1960, African Americans had much lower rates of personal violence than they do today. You also gave the example of Black Barbadians (although what you say is truer for "old school" Barbadians). So the "outer" cultural environment is just as important as the "inner" biological environment.

In 1960, African Americans were less violent than they are today, particularly young AA men. This was so because 80% of them were raised in homes where both parents were present. They also lived in neighborhoods where neighbors would actually intervene to control unruly behavior. Finally, religion was much more present. It controlled behavior from within (fear of God, guilt) and without (peer pressure, behavioral norms set by church-sponsored youth groups, etc.).

Today, all of that has changed. The liberalization of the 1960s was catastrophic for African Americans because they had never adapted to a highly individualistic, socially atomized society. For the past thousand years, we in the West have been pushing the limits of individualism and have suffered its toxic effects, but the consequences are much more serious for humans who have never adapted to that kind of social environment.

Barring them[Papuan New Guineans] returning to a purely stone age context with minimal agriculture, you really think a literal murder rate like that would be widely seen if those minor controls dissolved, or that it would increase much in an absolute sense at all?

That experiment is being carried out. The preliminary results are not very promising:

The crime rate in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is considered among the highest in the world. Carjackings, armed robberies, and stoning of vehicles are problems in/around major cities but can also occur elsewhere. You are more vulnerable to robbery or rape when traveling alone. The high rate of crime, to include those committed by the infamous “Raskol” gangs, can be opportunistic in nature. Sophisticated criminal enterprises do exist, and their capabilities often exceed that of local enforcement authorities.

Expatriate women should take caution not to dress provocatively. Local women typically do not wear revealing clothing. Women are at a higher risk for sexual assault. As such, women should avoid traveling alone. Travel in groups or with a guide. Be cautious of displays of wealth; do not carry anything with you that you are not willing to part with if confronted. Expatriates may be perceived as wealthy, potentially making them targets of opportunity for criminals.

https://www.osac.gov/pages/ContentReportDetails.aspx?cid=17301

About”African component” in Brazil. You are talking about genetic composition of average Brazilian (trirracial) and average Venezuelan or about demographic composition of Brazilian and Venezuelan populations???

I mean the average Brazilian. If you could blend all Brazilians into one person, how African would that person be? I remember reading a study that found that the African contribution to the Brazilian gene pool is less than what people think. Even in Bahia, it was only 25-30%.

Have you ever examined polyandry? How common it is, where and how it tends to arise, the dynamics of it, etc? That might be an interesting topic for a future post.

It's uncommon on a worldwide basis. High rates of polyandry have only been found in Tibet and some hill tribes in India. It usually involves two brothers sharing the same wife.

Polyandry is rare because women start off contributing more to reproduction than men do (pregnancy, breastfeeding, early infant care). So they stay off the mate market for longer periods of time.

But don’t you DARE say such things about non-blacks!

A lot of commenters here have no inhibitions against saying such things about Hispanics.

Or Jews, Jews, Jews (I've been lucky this time)

Peter,

What about differences between European and Mediterranean men in aggressiveness and sexual competitiveness? Are these differences the result of differences in polygyny in the past, or do you suppose other factors are at play?

Western girls also quickly realised that it was in Greece, where they could satisfy their sexual frustrations. According to Klouvas, the men who visited Greece from abroad were no match for the Greeks for one simple reason:

“In order for a European to approach a woman he’d need to have three or four drinks in him. We were hot-blooded, audacious Mediterranean men. We didn’t need to drink. We’d cut to the chase straight away and that would flatter the women. Plus, as a rule, we’d never hit on a woman if we stank of alcohol”.

I know you haven't explicitly made that claim, but you have multiple times compared the measured "murder rate" of tribal papuans to the murder rates in medieval britain, which even at their highest are still far lower than the face value rate of PNG tribes.

I am aware of crime in PNG, but your link does not say much about the continued or impending collapse or erosion of PNG's government. As I said, in many parts of PNG, government control and modern civilization are meager enough as it is, and I don't think much is being held back, nevermind the issue of extrapolating murder rates.

I agree with your assessment about africans and didn't mean to make that explicit claim about inherent dysfunction, but that is roughly what we see. And you seemed harsher towards them initially the way you spoke of how their murder rate would be higher.

I haven't encountered these things about hispanics from others here, but I haven't been trying to say wrongfully negative things about them. I hope I've made it clear to most people I am not talking about all hispanics. Amerind ancestry does not seem to be an especially clear cut factor in crime or social cohesion, nevermind the original white populations in question or whatever social selection has happened over the past several hundred years in the americas.

The main issue is do polygynous descended people have different outcomes to Europeans on average. In the UK and US crime rates are higher, on average, for the descendants of polygynous peoples. In the UK and US the whites have lower rates of crime, family instability that blacks, and in the US probably even 2nd or third generation assimilated Mexicans, because statistics show a trend of downward assimilation.

The post was just offering an explanation for different rates in different people. It is not a case of being harsh to say that people from other cultures have worse outcomes when assimilated to European culture. If anything it is an argument for multiculturalism. “Amerind ancestry does not seem to be an especially clear cut factor in crime or social cohesion”is saying it is all culture, so it would be all culture for blacks too.

Yes, Meso-Americans had tributary relations but compared to civilizations of the Ancient Near East they seemed far more inclined to genocidal violence. If you were a ruler conquered by the Hittities you became a vassal of the Hittite King. If you were the ruler of a city conquered in Meso-American your heart was ripped out of your living body and consumed by your conquerer.

I think that many authors on Meso-American civilizations tend to somewhat downplay the extent of human sacrifice and cannibalism.

I think that you are correct here, and it was not my intent to downplay this in any way. I just meant that my understanding is that they had a very well developed client state and tributary system. (You no doubt know that the exploitation of this system by Cortez was one of the keys to his success.) I have never read of any culture that approaches the industrial scale human sacrifice and cannibalism that was there in Mexica. I have a book on Cahokia in my reading queue; I hope the author addresses any possible direct connection to the Aztecs. You mention the ME and the Hittites. Instead of a straight chronological comparison it might be beneficial to think in terms of before agriculture and after. I guess the smart scholars do this already. Certainly we know that there was human sacrifice in many different cultures, whether it approached the extent of the ritual cannibalism of the Aztecs we don’t know. If someone from 1000 BC had passed through 10,000 BC ME and gave us a report we might have a different opinion. I haven’t read enough to state that all civilizations passed through the human sacrifice stage, but it sure seems like a good bet.

There's no way you're not Black or part Black, btw. There's no other incentive for someone to spend so much time (as a perusal of your posting history reveals) arguing "b-b-but Blacks aren't the worst! Stop focusing so much on Blacks, guys!"

I won't bother defending the behavior of Mexican cartels or the morons who celebrate them, but we're comparing races.I'll point out that in order to make your case, you need to focus on Mexico, a handful of small Central American countries, as well as countries with significant Black admixture (Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil). Can you show me similarly widespread sociopathic behavior currently occurring in heavily mestizo and/or indio countries such as Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, etc.?

That's the major difference. Brutal behavior among Blacks is not limited to America. I could easily find similar stories of brutal murders and rapes from South Africa, Uganda, the Congo, Somalia, Brazil, and so on. Even Blacks in Canada, who tend to be positively selected and more educated than Blacks elsewhere, commit a disproportionate amount of crimes relative to their population share.

I'll also note that Hispanic-American immigrants tend to be from the less educated and lower class segments of their countries. Many of them arrive here without a high school diploma. By no means are they a positively selected elite. And yet they and their children still have a drastically lower crime rates than African-Americans. I mean, it's not even close. I noticed you conveniently chose to ignore La Griffe's analysis. Did it hurt your feelings to see just how much more violent and criminal your precious African-Americans are compared to the Hispanics you're trying to shift focus on?

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/hispanic.htm

And many people are aware of these statistics, even if on a gut level. They know that Blacks are much more likely to make a neighborhood insufferable than any other group. It's not just crime either, but the way Blacks often behave in general once they're concentrated in an area. That's why Blacks are the most loathed race in the world, and that's what you can't bring yourself to admit. Once again, it's not some arbitrary decision to hate Blacks the most.

I have never seen an IQ as high as 94 for mexican mestizos. Your study is about 900-something people in total in a nation of over 100 million, and the first page gives no indication of the exact composition of the study.

Well, I just showed you one. You're complaining about a study with a sample size of 900 people? Do you know how statistics works? An N value of 900 is fairly robust. Many IQ studies have smaller sample sizes. (Puerto Ricans also have significant Black ancestry, btw, much higher than the average Mexican.)

And the fact is that Blacks have always been considered at the bottom of the racial totem pole. It's not only in modern times that this is the case. For example, here is Thomas Jefferson writing about them:

A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course.

Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad. The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture.

The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life. We know that among the Romans, about the Augustan age especially, the condition of their slaves was much more deplorable than that of the blacks on the continent of America. The two sexes were confined in separate apartments, because to raise a child cost the master more than to buy one. Cato, for a very restricted indulgence to his slaves in this particular, took from them a certain price. But in this country the slaves multiply as fast as the free inhabitants. Their situation and manners place the commerce between the two sexes almost without restraint.

And here is Francisco García Calderón, from his Latin America: Its Rise and Progress:

One may say that the admixture of the prevailing strains with black blood has been disastrous for these democracies. In applying John Stuart Mill's law of concomitant variations to the development of Spanish America one may determine a necessary relation between the numerical proportion of negroes and the intensity of civilisation. Wealth increases and internal order is greater in the Argentine, Uruguay, and Chile, and it is precisely in these countries that the proportion of negroes has always been low ; they have disappeared in the admixture of European races. In Cuba, San Domingo, and some of the republics of Central America, and certain of the States of the Brazilial Confederation, where the children of slaves constitute the greater portion of the population, internal disorders are continual. A black republic, Haiti, demonstrates by its revolutionary history the political incapacity of the negro race. The mulatto and the zambo are the true American hybrids. D'Orbigny believed the mestizo to be superior to the descendants of the Africans imported as slaves ; Burmeister is of opinion that in the mulatto the characteristics of the negro are predominant. Ayarragaray states that the children born of the union of negroes with zambos or natives are in general inferior to their parents, as much in intelligence as in physical energy. The inferior elements of the races which unite are evidently combined in their offspring. It is observed also that both in the mulattos and the zambos certain internal contraditions may be noted ; their will is weak and uncertain, and is dominated by instinct and gross and violent passions. Weakness of character corresponds with a turgid intelligence, incapable of profound analysis, or method, or general ideas, and a certain oratorical extravagance, a pompous rhetoric. The mulatto loves luxury and extravagance ; he is servile, and lacks moral feeling. The invasion of negroes affected all the Iberian colonies, where, to replace the outrageously exploited Indian, African slaves were imported by the ingenuous evangelists of the time. In Brazil, Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, and Peru this caste forms a high proportion of the total population. In Brazil 15 per cent, of the population is composed of negroes, without counting the immense number of mulattos and zambos. Bahia is half an African city. In Rio de Janiero the negroes of pure blood abound. In Panama the full-blooded Africans form 10 per cent, of the population. Between 1759 and 1803 642,000 negroes entered Brazil; between 1792 and 1810 Cuba received 89,000. These figures prove the formidable influence of the former slaves in modern America. But they are revenged for their enslavement in that their blood is mingled with that of their masters.

Incapable of order and self-government, they are a factor of anarchy ; every species of vain outer show attracts them sonorous phraseology and ostentation. They make a show of an official function, a university title, or an academic diploma. As the Indian could not work in the tropics black immigration was directed principally upon those regions, and the enervating climate, the indiscipline of the mulatto, and the weakness of the white element have contributed to the decadence of the Equatorial nations.

The mulatto is more despised than the mestizo because he often shows the abjectness of the slave and the indecision of the hybrid ; he is at once servile and arrogant, envious and ambitious. His violent desire to mount to a higher social rank, to acquire wealth, power, and display, is, as Sefior Bunge very justly remarks, a " hyperaesthesia of arrivism."

The zambos have created nothing in America. On the other hand, the robust mestizo populations, the Mamelucos of Brazil, the Cholos of Peru and Bolivia, the Rotos of Chile, descendants of Spaniards and the Guarani Indians, are distinguished by their pride and virility. Instability, apathy, degeneration all the signs of exhausted race are encountered far more frequently in the mulatto than in the mestizo.

And if you want one more example of the unique prejudice directed towards Blacks a century ago, here's H.P. Lovecraft:

Various race-stocks differ in inclinations & aptitudes, but of all of them I consider only the negro & australoid biologically inferior. Against these two a rigid colour-line ought to exist.

In dealing with these two black races, there is only one sound attitude for any other race (be it Indian, Malay, Polynesian, or Mongolian) to take–& that is to prevent admixture as completely & determinedly as it can be prevented, through the establishment of a colour-line & the rigid forcing of all mixed offspring below that line. I am in accord with the most vehement & vociferous Alabaman or Mississippian on that point, & it will be found that most Northerners react similarly when it comes to a practical showdown, no matter how much abstract equalitarian nonsense they may spout as a result of the abolitionist tradition inherited from the 1850’s. If a Russian-inspired communist dictatorship ever tried to force negro equality on the U. S., there is scant question but that the descendants of Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, & William Lloyd Garrison would stand side by side with those of Jefferson Davis & John C. Calhoun in fighting its ultimate implications to the death.

Members of one race can fit into another only through the complete eradication of their own background-influences–& even then the adjustment will always remain uneasy & imperfect if the newcomer’s physical aspect forms a constant reminder of his outside origin. Therefore it is wise to discourage all mixtures of sharply differentiated races—though the colour-line does not need to be drawn as strictly as in the case of the negro, since we know that a dash or two of Mongolian or Indian or Hindoo or some such blood will not actually injure a white stock biologically. John Randolph of Roanoke was none the worse off for having the blood of Pocahontas in his veins, nor does any Finn or Hungarian feel like a mongrel because his stock has a remote & now almost forgotten Mongoloid strain. With the high-grade alien races we can adopt a policy of flexible common-sense—discouraging mixture whenever we can, but not clamping down the bars so ruthlessly against every individual of slightly mixed ancestry.

There is no doubt that black Africans have more robust bones, dominate sprinting, and have propensity to get into physical confrontations . Black men are more high rated for physical attractiveness by women, and less likely to stay with one woman.

Dietrich, read Houellebecq’s book on HP Lovecraft, which quotes him about Europeans as if they were something out of the Dulwich Horror, before you cite him as an example of a particular antipathy toward blacks

you have multiple times compared the measured “murder rate” of tribal papuans to the murder rates in medieval britain, which even at their highest are still far lower than the face value rate of PNG tribes.

Wasn’t that the point I was trying to make?

As I said, in many parts of PNG, government control and modern civilization are meager enough as it is, and I don’t think much is being held back,

The coastal regions, including Port Moresby, have been strongly Christianized. People are “held back” not only by external controls (police, nosy neighbors, schools, workplaces),but also by internal controls, which may be learned or innate. Christianity has played a major role in curbing violent behavior. The decline of Christianity, in PNG and elsewhere, has had the effect of releasing inhibitions that used to exist.

What about differences between European and Mediterranean men in aggressiveness and sexual competitiveness? Are these differences the result of differences in polygyny in the past, or do you suppose other factors are at play?

I’ve read that testosterone levels follow a north-south cline within Europe. This may reflect differences in male mortality rather than polygyny rates. Of course, this raises the question as to why stature is shorter in southern Europe. I’ve read that sedentary living and farming tend to select for shorter stature, but I don’t have the references at hand.

The post was just offering an explanation for different rates in different people. It is not a case of being harsh to say that people from other cultures have worse outcomes when assimilated to European culture.

I agree. It is not demeaning to say that assimilation to another culture can have negative effects. People are best adapted to the culture they have long adapted to. It’s almost a tautology.

It’s bit like that study which found that African Americans sleep an hour less on average than Euro Americans. The authors presented short sleep duration as a kind of pathology, as something terrible. Yet it’s the norm in much of the world. In many societies, people combine nighttime sleep with a daytime siesta.

Many Western people have trouble dealing with that reality. Anything different from our reality is perceived as being pathological, when in fact it’s simply an adaptation to a different set of circumstances.

Yes, and given that you openly compare a "murder rate" of close to 600/100k to the highest recorded rate in Britain (over 100/100k in Oxford), you give the impression that polygyny is a far bigger factor in male violence than anything else.

I think what controls do exist in PNG are meager enough as they are. I look at it similar to how big christianity is in Africa. I doubt it's doing much to inhibit things, and people often mold religons/belief systems to suit themselves. I believe you have claimed this previously how tribal warfare in places like Pakistan predate Islam. In Africa, animism mixes with christianity and we see cults in Mexico that mix Christianity with indigenous beliefs.

Was there ever a time where Christianity was particularly strong and curbed things in PNG? You could argue the colonial era, but couldn't that have had more to do with just white rule independent of religious belief? It really feels like a stretch to say christianity is doing much for PNG, and we still have the issue of taking a murder rate of close to 700/100k at face value.

The theory sounds ok but reality is something different. The men in polygynous societies are not impressive whatsoever unless one is awed by some lunkhead flexing his biceps. Nothing comes out of those societies and none of them so much as produce a bicycle or even barely a skateboard. So some of them are supposed to be aggressive in nature, so what? None of them could combat any of the people from modern non-polygamous societies. They can run well in our sports contests but couldn’t construct the watches by which they’re being timed. The tallest men in Europe are Montenegrins, people along the Dinaric mountains and the Dutch, all impressive physically and none polygynous. It’s not clear what is meant by ‘more masculine’ in this case except for a stereotypical Mack Daddy concept which some types hold up as the epitome of masculinity which is actually just laughable.

The theory sounds ok but reality is something different. The men in polygynous societies are not impressive whatsoever unless one is awed by some lunkhead flexing his biceps. Nothing comes out of those societies and none of them so much as produce a bicycle or even barely a skateboard. So some of them are supposed to be aggressive in nature, so what? None of them could combat any of the people from modern non-polygamous societies. They can run well in our sports contests but couldn't construct the watches by which they're being timed. The tallest men in Europe are Montenegrins, people along the Dinaric mountains and the Dutch, all impressive physically and none polygynous. It's not clear what is meant by 'more masculine' in this case except for a stereotypical Mack Daddy concept which some types hold up as the epitome of masculinity which is actually just laughable.

Is not a theory but observations about this people and its cultures.

Is not a universal pattern. Physically strong men don’t have necessarily to be polygamous.

you have multiple times compared the measured “murder rate” of tribal papuans to the murder rates in medieval britain, which even at their highest are still far lower than the face value rate of PNG tribes.

Wasn't that the point I was trying to make?

As I said, in many parts of PNG, government control and modern civilization are meager enough as it is, and I don’t think much is being held back,

The coastal regions, including Port Moresby, have been strongly Christianized. People are "held back" not only by external controls (police, nosy neighbors, schools, workplaces),but also by internal controls, which may be learned or innate. Christianity has played a major role in curbing violent behavior. The decline of Christianity, in PNG and elsewhere, has had the effect of releasing inhibitions that used to exist.

What about differences between European and Mediterranean men in aggressiveness and sexual competitiveness? Are these differences the result of differences in polygyny in the past, or do you suppose other factors are at play?

I've read that testosterone levels follow a north-south cline within Europe. This may reflect differences in male mortality rather than polygyny rates. Of course, this raises the question as to why stature is shorter in southern Europe. I've read that sedentary living and farming tend to select for shorter stature, but I don't have the references at hand.

The post was just offering an explanation for different rates in different people. It is not a case of being harsh to say that people from other cultures have worse outcomes when assimilated to European culture.

I agree. It is not demeaning to say that assimilation to another culture can have negative effects. People are best adapted to the culture they have long adapted to. It's almost a tautology.

It's bit like that study which found that African Americans sleep an hour less on average than Euro Americans. The authors presented short sleep duration as a kind of pathology, as something terrible. Yet it's the norm in much of the world. In many societies, people combine nighttime sleep with a daytime siesta.

Many Western people have trouble dealing with that reality. Anything different from our reality is perceived as being pathological, when in fact it's simply an adaptation to a different set of circumstances.

“Wasn’t that the point I was trying to make?”

Yes, and given that you openly compare a “murder rate” of close to 600/100k to the highest recorded rate in Britain (over 100/100k in Oxford), you give the impression that polygyny is a far bigger factor in male violence than anything else.

I think what controls do exist in PNG are meager enough as they are. I look at it similar to how big christianity is in Africa. I doubt it’s doing much to inhibit things, and people often mold religons/belief systems to suit themselves. I believe you have claimed this previously how tribal warfare in places like Pakistan predate Islam. In Africa, animism mixes with christianity and we see cults in Mexico that mix Christianity with indigenous beliefs.

Was there ever a time where Christianity was particularly strong and curbed things in PNG? You could argue the colonial era, but couldn’t that have had more to do with just white rule independent of religious belief? It really feels like a stretch to say christianity is doing much for PNG, and we still have the issue of taking a murder rate of close to 700/100k at face value.

"Why do some people think it’s okay to make gross, hyperbolic, and sometimes downright inaccurate negative generalizations about non-Black races just to make Blacks seem a little better? Are you Black yourself, by any chance?"

No, I'm not black. I like your question though- it could easily be read as "Why do some people think it's okay to make gross, hyperbolic, and sometimes downright negative generalizations about non-black races just to make nigh- I mean, blacks seem a little better? Saying the same things about blacks isn't gross, hyperbolic, and downright negative or inaccurate, because they're without a doubt the absolute dregs of humanity, so don't you dare say anything like that about Mexicans."

I didn't deny that african-american society has plenty of sociopaths/psychopaths, I just feel there's a distinct sadism and inhumanity among Mexican drug cartels that isn't seen quite to the extent in african-americans, or even africans (unless it's in a full fledged warzone). It's not just mexican drug cartels though- we can also talk about MS-13 or whatever cartels/gangs brutalize Honduras and other latin american countries with incredible murder rates.

I'm aware that the higher intelligence of mexicans likely plays a role in the organization of mexican drug cartels, but the average mexican IQ is like what, around 90? No higher than the low 90's, and that's in part brought up by white Mexicans, so we'd likely be talking 90 for the typical mexican mestizo. A several point difference has big ramifications, but it becomes kind of a stretch to act like an IQ difference of 5 points is that worthwhile when it's still that low, that we'd be seeing cartel violence comparable to mexicans if the african-american IQ was higher. I really don't mind going that direction at all, because if you payed attention to the rest of my post (or anything else I've posted in this thread), it's clear I'm not opposed in the least to talking about biological differences, and I also made the caveat that different populations can have violence/psychopathy differentially concentrated in the population, so I'm not talking about the average mexican vs. the average african-american. It seems like you just homed in on the fact I dared say maybe blacks aren't the worst people in the world and I'm somehow slandering the poor people of the mexican drug cartels.

Can I ask you why some people think it's okay to home in on blacks as the absolute worst humanity has to offer and make gross, hyperbolic, and often downright negative, untrue generalizations about them and downplay anything equally bad or worse on the part of non-blacks, often because their internal thinking boils down to "I just really hate them"?

Can I also ask you why you ignored everything else I said and posted something as dishonest and pathetic as this?

And I don't think it's pure fantasy at all. If you want to look at a historical antecedent, look at who reigned in Mexico before the Spaniards- the Aztecs, one of the most uniquely violent and sadistic civilizations to have ever existed, who engaged in borderline industrial levels of human sacrifice and had state sanctioned cannibalism, who were widely hated throughout Mexico and prompted various states to ally with the Spaniards to vanquish them.

“Can I ask you why some people think it’s okay to home in on blacks as the absolute worst humanity has to offer”

I’m guessing that if you asked them, they would say Australian aborigines are worse, but less relevant. Possibly other small groups, too. Who cares about PPNG murders if they’re all in their homeland?

Murder rates in small, primitive tribal contexts are not comparable or extrapolable to more complex contexts. You cannot expect whatsoever a "murder rate" of over 600 to be literally sustained beyond the setting of a stone age tribal one, or that it's even accurate to think of that as a murder rate comparable to anything in a more complex society. There are far fewer people in those papuan societies, and any murder (or more accurately, death in war) in a small setting like that is going to register in an absolute sense as a very high murder rate. At the same time, the mindset and dynamics behind "murder" are not the same in an absolute sense compared to modern ones. This is what led Pinker (and seemingly you) to extrapolate these in a literal sense and act like one murder in a group of small tribal bands is truly comparable to something like mass murder in a more advanced setting, among other things. If one person commits a murder in a band of 100 people, that murder rate would register as 100/100k. In terms of proportions, that person is a mass murderer. But it's very doubtful that person is as sociopathic as an actual mass murderer and they'd have the capacity to commit it in a bigger population, or that many people would see them as comparable to one. That is what we're talking about when we look at killings in stone age tribal villages.

Imagine a scenario in which a few hundred people of european descent were stranded on a deserted island. They form a small society. Over time, a few get killed here and there over personal quarrels. They in essence aren't that different from what is seen back in their home countries, which all have low murder rates. But given the small population and the proportion of murders, they would register a murder rate radically higher. You could come up with other similar examples, like a village of a few hundred or so where from time to time a few people get murdered. Owing to the small population, the murder rate would be registered as very high, but you can't expect this to be sustained in the same sense beyond this setting or that the dynamics of violence/sociopathy/etc. can be magnified so readily.

Your comparison with how people in the new guinea highlands engage in war is kind of disingenuous. Any tribal war for people that primitive with such small populations is going to register high "murder" rates, and would often manifest with what are in reality very petty reasons.

Papua New Guinea is a very poor, undeveloped country, and even the parts exposed to modernity are usually backwards. Government control and influence is marginal and people often have few modern amenities. Barring them returning to a purely stone age context with minimal agriculture, you really think a literal murder rate like that would be widely seen if those minor controls dissolved, or that it would increase much in an absolute sense at all?

The point about the pygmies was that I do not think, given what has been documented about them behavior wise, that murder rate (which would probably be higher than african-americans) would literally sustain itself in a larger, more complex setting. I should have clarified this a bit more aside from the example with women, though. There are settled pygmy communities where people have some modern amenities and the people number in the thousands, and I doubt the murder rate is literally as high, or high at all. At the same time, the extreme gender equality likely hasn't sustained itself and there are more than likely a few women who over time have been murdered by men. The mechanisms and dynamics behind behaviors in small, primitive tribal contexts are usually very different from those of people in larger, more complex settings. But through all this, I don't really think it's monogamy why the pygmies are so non-violent.

I didn't say modern police can't deter crime. However, the extent of how much it can deter it is. At an extreme, it can prevent a remarkable amount of crime if it's completely totalitarian and all encompassing and targets any slight with extreme repercussions (like what you see in North Korea), but beyond that, it isn't as clear. Tight policing can variously exacerbate crime, and what would be helpful is if you could compare the african-american murder rate before it peaked and it led to a larger incarceration that ultimately lowered the rate to now. It mainly peaked when drug use was in full-swing (an exception you again only allowed for latin americans), similar to what is seen in latin america, but is there any indication it was really that higher before modern policing and other modern controls?

You make a good point about the murder rate in the US before modern medical technology, but I'm not entirely convinced. I've seen other data and arguments to indicate murder rates would be higher without modern technology (and this is the case in third world countries.)

I see what you mean about the influence of the church, but you were claiming even now, they are strong contingencies against higher murder rates, and I don't think that's very accurate.

"Yes, that’s State-organized violence. The State can kill far more people than can individuals acting on their own."

Uh.... the people who kill POW's, civilians, engage in brutal torture etc. are still individual soldiers and such. You continually act like the violence we've seen in the past during war or various states of it, where atrocities and such were committed at far greater frequencies than we see now, can be distinctively parsed from behavior in the regular social sphere, that they aren't indicative of behavior outside of war. There is no reason to believe this.

I think it's debatable if underreporting is on the whole worse. I have seen murder statistics far african countries that are unbelievably low, but other times much higher ones. On the other hand, international agencies have routinely ranked various latin american countries as among the most dangerous in the world outside of warzones, moreso than many african ones, in spite of whatever underreporting there is. We get higher recorded murder rates than many african countries in places like Honduras, with plenty of indication there are heavily underreported, even before the spikes in the drug trade.

I'm not denying what the UN report said. My point is that the presence of organized crime networks means male violence is concentrated in different realms, and we'd very likely see far higher violence against women without them. We already see plenty even with their presence.

Venezuela and Brazil do not in any way have similar makeups. The african Venezuelan might have significant african ancestry, but it's not comparable to Brazil. The black ancestry is much more pervasive and widespread in Brazil, and heavily african individuals are much more common. The "black" population in Venezuela is under 3%. Brazilians have very little amerind ancestry, and the amerind population is very small and mostly found in the rainforest regions.

“Your comparison with how people in the new guinea highlands engage in war is kind of disingenuous. Any tribal war for people that primitive with such small populations is going to register high “murder” rates, and would often manifest with what are in reality very petty reasons.”

Says the guy who brought up a 100/100000 murder rate in a single year in Oxford when it had 2000 people. IOW, two murders.

Pardon me if I don't know the exact population of Oxford back then. I assumed it was in the thousands or around 10,000 (which is a reliable number in gauging these things, like if you compared Tuskegee's homicide rate to the african-american average). I don't doubt it was vastly smaller than it is now, but 2,000 seems like a stretch. If it's as low as 2,000, I'll rescind it, but comparing the murder rates of towns/cities back then to stone age tribal people where most violent deaths occur in ritualized tribal war, and I'm pretty sure a town of 2,000 people is much bigger than the largest villages in tribal PNG. Even then, only 2 murders in Oxford even if the population was about 2,000, in face of what has been recorded elsewhere in Britain and the rest of Europe doesn't seem likely.

"Oh my, I didn’t even read this” If one person commits a murder in a band of 100 people, that murder rate would register as 100/100k.”

You might want to work on your math skills."

You might want to work on where you use your snark. I admit I made an error when I should have said 1,000/100k, but the same point stands (and is even more pronounced than what I originally said). You can use a measure of x/100k when discussing homicide rates even when the population is far smaller than 100,000. Any homicide in a very small population is going to register as much more disproportionately than in a much larger one.

''I have never seen an IQ as high as 94 for mexican mestizos. Your study is about 900-something people in total in a nation of over 100 million, and the first page gives no indication of the exact composition of the study.''

Immigrants from nearby regions tend to be dysgenic by nature and specially if have ''facilitations'' as jobs, cultural bridges (as greater diaspora in this country OR same language, a common ''history'')

More distant, more social differences between the two countries, more difficult will be to immigrate, more selected will tend to be.

Lynn analysed mestizo-mexicans from Mexico City if 'i'm wrong.

The IQ of ALL Mexicans isn’t as high as 94, and you’re saying it’s dysgenic immigration.

Why on Earth would you conclude that a reasonably intelligent but kind of foolish anti-racist was a mestizo? This guy is a moderate. Seriously, he’s a lot closer to the HBD side than the average Democrat. Oh, and there’s his name, which isn’t proof, but is evidence

References would be helpful. I am aware human sacrifice predated the Aztecs for sure, but I have never heard of anything comparable to them.

Santoculto:

10 vs. 20 million is a big difference. Haiti has worse living standards than many african countries. Even the most crime-ridden, impoverish black majority/significant minority countries in carribbean do not approach it. Jamaica, one of them, actually has a good deal of modern infrastructure, national industries, and has actually produced some worthwhile things culturally. Nothing similar could be said of Haiti.

And I meant that the level of social cohesion and general living standards are sustained in these countries even if the reason for economy being as prosperous as it is isn't likely due to much ingenuity on the part of black populace. They're nothing like South Africa. Even the ones that are not tourist spots/tax havens do not approach Haiti's dysfunction.

Do you have any evidence Barbadian immigrants in the US are more violent?

Truth:

It really doesn't matter if MS-13 originated in that fashion. Blaming african-americans for it is crazy. It doesn't say much good about the El Salvadorans if what began as something to protect their people grew into something worse than the african-american gangs that attacked their people.

Oh, and here's El Salvador's recorded murder rate from that link about the Dominican Republic I posted:

"2010, it had a homicide rate of 24.9 per 100,000, far below those of Honduras (82.1), El Salvador (66), Jamaica (52.1), Trinidad and Tobago (35.2) and Belize (41.7),"

It's worse than majority/heavily black countries Jamaica, T&T and Belize. That could help explain why MS-13 formed as it did.

Haiti has worse living standards than many african countries. Even the most crime-ridden, impoverish black majority/significant minority countries in carribbean do not approach it.

Well, sure, Haiti has African people in an overpopulated country with frequent natural disasters. You’d expect it to be a hellhole.

"Your comparison with how people in the new guinea highlands engage in war is kind of disingenuous. Any tribal war for people that primitive with such small populations is going to register high “murder” rates, and would often manifest with what are in reality very petty reasons."

Says the guy who brought up a 100/100000 murder rate in a single year in Oxford when it had 2000 people. IOW, two murders.

That was pretty stupid.

Pardon me if I don’t know the exact population of Oxford back then. I assumed it was in the thousands or around 10,000 (which is a reliable number in gauging these things, like if you compared Tuskegee’s homicide rate to the african-american average). I don’t doubt it was vastly smaller than it is now, but 2,000 seems like a stretch. If it’s as low as 2,000, I’ll rescind it, but comparing the murder rates of towns/cities back then to stone age tribal people where most violent deaths occur in ritualized tribal war, and I’m pretty sure a town of 2,000 people is much bigger than the largest villages in tribal PNG. Even then, only 2 murders in Oxford even if the population was about 2,000, in face of what has been recorded elsewhere in Britain and the rest of Europe doesn’t seem likely.

“Oh my, I didn’t even read this
” If one person commits a murder in a band of 100 people, that murder rate would register as 100/100k.”

You might want to work on your math skills.”

You might want to work on where you use your snark. I admit I made an error when I should have said 1,000/100k, but the same point stands (and is even more pronounced than what I originally said). You can use a measure of x/100k when discussing homicide rates even when the population is far smaller than 100,000. Any homicide in a very small population is going to register as much more disproportionately than in a much larger one.

“Several theories link polygamy to poverty. Polygamy is concentrated in west Africa and has declined in recent decades. Geographic variation in women’s agricultural productivity does not predict differences in the prevalence of polygamy, but historical inequality and exposure to the slave trade do. Although contemporary female education does not reduce polygamy, areas with more educational investment in the past have less polygamy today. Conflict and lower rainfall lead to small increases in polygamy, whereas lower child mortality leads to a large decrease. National policies appear to have little effect.”

” Polygamy in the data is largely bigamy – 72% of respondents report that they are the only wife, 19% report that their husband has two wives, 7% report that he has three wives, and fewer than 2% report that he has 4 wives or more.

“The three hypotheses I test about the spatial distribution of polygamy relate to geographic, historical, and cultural variables that are slow to change. First, Jacoby (1995), building on Boserup (1970), has linked differences in the demand for wives across regions of the Ivory Coast to the productivity of women in agriculture. I find, by contrast, that polygamy is least common in those parts of Africa where women have historically been most important in agriculture. Second, economists since Becker (1974) have argued that polygamy can only exist where there is inequality between men. I am not able to find any correlation between wealth inequality recorded in the DHS and the probability that a woman is polygamous. I find, however, that historical inequality predicts polygamy today.”

“These results pose challenges to existing theories of polygamy. The distribution of polygamy in Africa does not fit an explanation rooted in the gender division of labour. I find no evidence that educating women in the present reduces polygamy. Further, I find that history matters. Pre-colonial inequality, the slave trade, and colonial education all predict polygamy rates in the present. I find limited evidence that African marriage markets have responded to economic growth and fluctuations. The largest elasticities that I find are in response to changes in child health. This is consistent with theories that see polygamy as a strategy for men to increase fertility, making wives and surviving births per wife substitutes.”

The Long-Term Effect of Demographic Shocks on the Evolution of Gender Roles:
Evidence from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade∗ Edoardo Teso †
July 2014
sites.bu.edu/neudc/files/2014/10/paper_139.pdf

Although I mentioned this in a comment, I somehow overlooked this later on, but I’ll reiterate abit:

“This sexual division of labor influenced the transition to farming. In the tropics, women were the main providers for their families as gatherers of fruits, berries, roots, and other wild plant foods. They were the ones who developed farming, thereby biasing it toward domestication of wild plants.

This may be seen in sub-Saharan Africa, where farming arose near the Niger’s headwaters and gave rise to the Sudanic food complex—a wide range of native crops now found throughout the continent (sorghum, pearl millet, cow pea, etc.) and only one form of livestock, the guinea fowl (Murdock, 1959, pp. 44, 64-68). Many wild animal species could have been domesticated for meat production, but women were much less familiar with them. Men knew these species as hunters but had little motivation to domesticate them. Why should they? Women were the main providers.”

I’m curious where you get the idea women were the ones who developed farming. This seems like a pretty bizarre idea to be honest, given that agriculture on the part of SS africans is up to 10,000 years old, and while polygyny is similarly old, it really stretches believability to think that this arose on the part of women and that polygyny and agriculture’s origins worked so closely in tandem. And again, your idea that polygyny prevented domestication of other animals in SS africa really falls apart when you consider that africans have been in contact with so many other animals long before agriculture/polygyny yet never domesticated them, while many animals in eurasia/the americas were domesticated before agriculture or when it was very primitive. Africans also took to usage of a wide variety of domesticated animals with no difficulty, even if they weren’t domesticated by themselves, and I’m pretty sure men do most of the work with them. And while it’s difficult to say the various animals in SS africa are impossible to domesticate, it’s most likely the case they are for the most part far harder, to the point where a primitive people might have a very hard or even impossible time to do so. Europeans today have made virtually no progress in domesticating zebras (I should add the topic of the domestication of zebras is a really tired subject in this discussion that borders on parody at times- “BUT WHY DIDN’T THEY DOMESTICATE ZEBRAS???”), among others.

You really seem to boil too much down to differences polygyny. Explaining why africans supposedly failed to domesticate other animals in africa because of it is nonsensical.

“Spieth quotes informants who tell that agriculture in the older days was carried out exclusively by men. Old people today say that before cocoa was introduced, men were “by far and large the food producers, while the women helped on the farm during weeding and harvesting periods”. There is locally a strong opinion about the importance of male labour in food production in the earlier daysand it seems certain that men were mainly responsible for yam cultivation.
Men were responsible for clearing the land and burning the straws, diggingthe hills for the yam, and, when mature, cutting the heads of the yam for replanting. Women seemed to have shared the work with the men in weeding, and in planting and harvesting the rest of the crop. If the family had people in pledge or slaves, then they did the clearing and digging of the yam mounds, and helped with the weeding.
When the farmers started to grow cocoa, much less emphasis was put on food crops. Firstly, the food farms were soon pushed away from the most fertile land, now being used for cocoa growing. Secondly, the men’s time now became occupied in the cocoa farms for part of the year. Work in the cocoa farms coincided with e.g. the yam harvest, but the men also had in general less time to spend on the food farms. The responsibilities for food production thereby to a larger degree came to be left to the women. This new sexual division of labour in agriculture resulted in the yam slowly being replaced with other crops like maize and cassava, which were less labour intensive.
The new sexual division of labour in agriculture created a system under which the men controlled the cash crop production, while women took responsibility for the subsistence activities. Cocoa was grown by men, and the marketing of the beans was also completely in the hands of men, who sold them to the European trading houses. Food crops, on the other hand, were entirely the women’s domain, in the sense that they were responsible for handling and selling them in the market. The cocoa brought money into the hands of the men twice a year. This money was earmarked for larger investments either in more cocoa, or in house building and children’s education. The women’s sale offood crops from the family farm did not yield cash that they could dispose of. This money was controlled by the family head, the man, and used directly for subsistence needs of the family. ”

“There is a high correlation between societies where women farm an polygyny but there are serious defects in the argument as far as Africa is concerned. For while it is in East Africa that
women’s farming predominates(Goody and Buckley, 1973), it is in the west that polygyny rates are the highest.”

"In the case of the woman trader, the main source of capital was her husband or his father on marriage, and the percentage seems to have been higher in Ogbomosho than in the other towns. The amount of (Table 5.5) capital varied with th e means of the husband, but was generally smaller than that of the men, reflecting their greater dependency."

Strangers and Traders: Yoruba Migrants, Markets, and the State in Northern Ghana
By Jeremy Seymour Eades, p.111

That thing about palm wine is interesting. I read a Nigerian story that followed that exact trend, I think the Joys of Motherhood was the title. The wife worked all the time while the husband was in and out and often getting drunk.

"Spieth quotes informants who tell that agriculture in the older days was carried out exclusively by men. Old people today say that before cocoa was introduced, men were "by far and large the food producers, while the women helped on the farm during weeding and harvesting periods". There is locally a strong opinion about the importance of male labour in food production in the earlier daysand it seems certain that men were mainly responsible for yam cultivation.
Men were responsible for clearing the land and burning the straws, diggingthe hills for the yam, and, when mature, cutting the heads of the yam for replanting. Women seemed to have shared the work with the men in weeding, and in planting and harvesting the rest of the crop. If the family had people in pledge or slaves, then they did the clearing and digging of the yam mounds, and helped with the weeding.
When the farmers started to grow cocoa, much less emphasis was put on food crops. Firstly, the food farms were soon pushed away from the most fertile land, now being used for cocoa growing. Secondly, the men's time now became occupied in the cocoa farms for part of the year. Work in the cocoa farms coincided with e.g. the yam harvest, but the men also had in general less time to spend on the food farms. The responsibilities for food production thereby to a larger degree came to be left to the women. This new sexual division of labour in agriculture resulted in the yam slowly being replaced with other crops like maize and cassava, which were less labour intensive.
The new sexual division of labour in agriculture created a system under which the men controlled the cash crop production, while women took responsibility for the subsistence activities. Cocoa was grown by men, and the marketing of the beans was also completely in the hands of men, who sold them to the European trading houses. Food crops, on the other hand, were entirely the women's domain, in the sense that they were responsible for handling and selling them in the market. The cocoa brought money into the hands of the men twice a year. This money was earmarked for larger investments either in more cocoa, or in house building and children's education. The women's sale offood crops from the family farm did not yield cash that they could dispose of. This money was controlled by the family head, the man, and used directly for subsistence needs of the family. "

Bukh, J. 1979. The Village Woman in Ghana
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:278154/FULLTEXT01.pdf

"There is a high correlation between societies where women farm an polygyny but there are serious defects in the argument as far as Africa is concerned. For while it is in East Africa that
women's farming predominates(Goody and Buckley, 1973), it is in the west that polygyny rates are the highest."

“In the case of the woman trader, the main source of capital was her husband or his father on marriage, and the percentage seems to have been higher in Ogbomosho than in the other towns. The amount of (Table 5.5) capital varied with th e means of the husband, but was generally smaller than that of the men, reflecting their greater dependency.”

Strangers and Traders: Yoruba Migrants, Markets, and the State in Northern Ghana
By Jeremy Seymour Eades, p.111

One last quote, which I should have included in my original Jane Guyer post

“The empirical sources no longer support Baumann’s assertion of a primordial division of labor, but rather lend credence to a view that the features of “femaile farming” are relatively recent immovations associated with the spread of new world staples from the sixteenth century onward.
…The fundamental problem is precisely what made the vision attractive and plausible in the first place, namely the assumption that Baumann expressed so unselfconsciously and graphically, that African farming in the twentieth century can be taken to represent an early stage of human social evolution”
“Female Farming in Anthropology and African History” by Jane Guyer p.257-9

(One last quote, which I should have included in my first post of Guyer’s work)

“The empirical sources no longer support Baumann’s assertion of a primordial division of labor, but rather lend credence to a view that the features of “femaile farming” are relatively recent immovations associated with the spread of new world staples from the sixteenth century onward.
…The fundamental problem is precisely what made the vision attractive and plausible in the first place, namely the assumption that Baumann expressed so unselfconsciously and graphically, that African farming in the twentieth century can be taken to represent an early stage of human social evolution”
“Female Farming in Anthropology and African History” by Jane Guyer p.257-9

The Yoruba were historically divided into culturally varied city-state subgroups, so the male contribution may have differed significantly within Yorubaland.

“The three major items within the household were food, clothes, and education. The division of finacial load varied greatly, depending on the relative wealth of the spouses, the number of children, and the total income of the polygynous family. In general, men earned more than women, and when the wife was trading on a small scale, the husband had to provide nearly everything. Polygynous men tended to be wealthier, but their households were correspondingly larger.
…For instance, if a man had no money on him in the morning to give his wife, or chop money(food money; my parenthesis) for the children, he would leave early for the market, leaving his wife to provide the money from her own pocket. He would then pay her back at the end of the day out of his takings.”
Strangers and Traders: Yoruba Migrants, Markets, and the State in Northern Ghana
By Jeremy Seymour Eades, p.85

Concerning the Ga and Ashanti peoples of Ghana:
“If the duolocal couple has children, they often live with the mother but retain normal bonds with the father. The woman will receive money, usually referred to as “chop money”, and/or other resources from the man for the maintenance of the duolocal household. The woman will supplement the man’s “chop money or resources with food from her farm and/or income from her off-farm activities.”
Challenging Situatedness: Gender, Culture and the Production of Knowledge
By Ericka Engelstad, Siri Gerrard, p.117

“Among the Ga of Accra, Ghana, the husband is expected to pay for the food and clothing of his conjugal family.
…In sum, there is a general agreement that the major items of childrearing expense, including food and clothing in some instances and by all accounts the major expenditures related to education, are the primary responsibilities of the husband. Thus to say that the burdens of child rearing fall almost entirely on the shoulders of the wife, which is the view advanced by Caldwell….is to overstate the case considerably.”

…Ashanti men (Abu, 1983) provide their wives and children with the basic necessities—such as chop (meal) money and school fees…”
Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa
By National Research Council (U.S.). Working Group on Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use, p. 109-110

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